Welcome to the Summer Food Service Program Administrative Training. This training will focus on: understanding the responsibilities of SFSP participation, understanding record keeping requirements, and becoming familiar with SFSP regulations. These topics usually apply to the SFSP Sponsor and site manager.
The SFSP is a USDA Child Nutrition Program. It offers federal reimbursement for meals served to children at eligible sites, primarily serves children in low-income areas, and operates during summer months, school vacations, and during emergency closures. Children age 18 and under may receive meals through the SFSP. A person 19 years of age and over who has a mental or physical disability (as determined by a State or local educational agency) and who participates during the school year in a public or private non-profit school program (which has been established for the mentally or physically disabled) is also eligible to receive meals. Sponsors may also serve infants with prior approval from the State Agency.
This is the basic process of how a sponsor receives reimbursement. First you will Complete Application and Approval Process for Sponsor and Sites. Then plan menus or locate a vendor to provide meals. Next offer meals that meet the meal pattern and keep track of who received a meal. The details of how this is done will vary by site. Then you will total up the meals you can claim for reimbursement which may include a limited number of 2nd meals and then submit a total of the meal serve during the month to our office for payment based on the federal reimbursement rates.
So how much does a sponsor receive in reimbursement for meals served. You receive a different amount of reimbursement depending on where your site is located or if you self prepared meals or purchase them from a vendor. Different meals also receive different rates of reimbursement. These rates are updated each year in March or April. Our office will send you the new rates when they’re released at the federal level. All meals and snacks will be given an additional .02 cents credit or entitlement to purchase USDA Foods. Remember that camps only receive reimbursement for eligible participants. 2% of a sponsor’s second meals are also eligible for reimbursement.
The role of the State Agency is to promote, improve and implement the Child Nutrition Programs in our state. We need to ensure that the meals you serve are prepared, served, documented and claimed according to the federal guidelines. If you’re not already on the Summer Food Program, one of the steps to coming on the program is a preapproval visit. We will come out and look through your food program paperwork and visit your proposed sites to ensure that you’re ready to come on to the program and be successful. After you’re on the program, our office will do compliance reviews. We can do reviews at any time, they can be announced or unannounced. On some reviews, we’ll look at samples of your paperwork, on other reviews, we’ll look through 100% of your paperwork. While we realize that reviews can be intimidating, please keep in mind that we really do want you to be successful in running the food program. During the review we let you know when there are issues, we’ll also point out what you’re doing well. We’re not just to enforce the rules, but to help you implement them. If you have questions about how to best run the food program, please ask us! The more you ask us ahead of time, the less likely that you’ll have unpleasant surprises during a review.
One of the things that you need to show before you come on to the program and when you do your renewal each year is that you are financially viable, administratively capable, and accountable for the program. We often refer to these three aspects as VCA. The purpose of ensuring financial viability is to ensure your organization has sufficient funds to operate the food program. The reimbursement you receive is a set amount based on the number of meals served, not prepared, and may not reflect your actual costs of preparing and serving the meals. If your costs exceed your reimbursement you must have other funds available to offset those costs. Start up funds and advance payments are available and may be applied for during the approval and renewal process. The key to financial success all starts with an accurate budget.
When participating in a federal grant program it is critical to note that the reimbursement from the food program is only spent on allowable, reasonable and necessary administrative and operational costs related to the food service at your site or sites. We refer to this as operating a non-profit food service. For example, if you receive $1000 in reimbursement for the month, you would need to show that you spent about $1000 in operating the food program. So if you spent $650 on food purchases, $100 on non-food items such as paper plates, napkins, paper towels, etc, and $500 in wages for your cook, you would definitely be in compliance with this requirement. In this case, we often see sponsors are spending more on operating their food service than they receive in reimbursement.
This is of course, just fine, but you also need to show that you have other funds to cover those costs. If you’re just coming on to the program, we would need to see financial records such as profit/loss statements to show that you would be able to cover those costs. While this might seem like we’re being nosey, the reason for this is to help the program integrity. If a sponsor isn’t doing well financially, chances are higher that the reimbursement money will go towards paying for expenses that are not associated with the food service. You’ll need to complete a budget in our on-line system when you’re first coming onto the program and every year when you renew your application with us to show that you are financially viable.
Next on to Administrative Capability. This means that you have the staffing and ability to implement the food program according to program requirements. You will need to describe how your organization will train and have sufficient staff to ensure you’re following all of the requirements. One person can’t do everything; it’s important that program responsibilities be delegated to the appropriate staff members. It’s highly recommended that staff are cross trained so that if staff members are sick, on vacation, turnover, etc. that the program can still be implemented properly. Give responsibilities to those who have the skills, time, and training to do so. Once the responsible individual for the food program is trained, it’s your responsibility to train your staff on this same information. Make sure that you document the training that you give, poor record keeping is the quickest way to lose money on the food program. Keep in mind the saying “if it is not documented it did not happen”.
Now on to program accountability. Reimbursement money must be used towards program costs and protected from misuse. If funds are found to be misused then meals will be disallowed and recovered; we do not like to recover funds. It is easier for you and for our office if you are successful. Again you should train your staff on the topics that apply to their individual duties. For example, if your site staff only do point of service meal counts and meal service then it would be just fine to train them civil rights and non-discrimination, which applies to all food program staff, and then the additional two topics relating specifically to their position.
In addition to demonstrating VCA, each participating organization must meet state and local licensing and health and safety requirements. These may include business licenses, and health permits. Because requirements vary by city and county it is important to reach out to your local contacts and let them know about your plans to operate the SFSP and inquire as to any requirements you will need to meet. All organizations must also be assigned a DUNS number through Duns and Bradstreet, incorporated. DUNs numbers must be obtained by any organization planning to receive federal funds. There should be no cost when obtaining your DUNs number. If it’s asking for you to pay a fee, you’re not signing up for the right thing.
One of the best resources to ensure compliance with Summer Program Requirements is the USDA Summer Food Program Administration Guide. It is a comprehensive guide to how to operate the food program and can answer most common questions. In the back of the guide are several useful attachments, such as an index of commonly used program acronyms and definitions, policy index, as well as sample forms that can be used for program recordkeeping.
Lets go over who may receive a meal in a little more detail. Sponsors have the option to serve meals to anyone. However, only meals served to children may be claimed as reimbursable meals. Along with children ages 18 years and younger, program regulations defines children as persons over 18 years of age who are determined by the State or local educational agency or a local public education agency as having a mental or physical disability and who participate during the school year in a public or private non-profit school program established for the mentally or physically disabled. Therefore, meals served to any person who meets the above definition may be claimed as reimbursable meals. Program Adults work directly with the meal service at the site as either volunteers or paid employees. Meals may be served free to adults who meet this definition. These meals may not be claimed for reimbursement, but may be counted as operating costs.
Non-Program Adults do not work in any direct way with the meal service at the site, such as a parent or guardian. If a sponsor chooses to serve meals to non-Program adults, the sponsor may charge a fee for the meal. The cost of meals served to non-Program adults may be counted as part of the sponsor’s operating costs only if the adult pays at least the full cost of the meal (including food and non-food supplies, labor, and the value of commodities), or non-Program funds cover the full cost of the meal and the money received is reported as income to the Program.
If you have any questions or would like information on where to find additional training on any of the topics discussed in this section please contact our office.
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