Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services, Division of Food, Nutrition and Wellness

 

DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE AND CONSUMER SERVICES

Division of Food, Nutrition and Wellness

Child Nutrition Program State Waiver Request

1.     State agency submitting waiver request and responsible State agency staff contact information:  Florida Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services (FDACS)

Lakeisha T. Hood, Director, [phone] or 1(800)504-6609, [e-mail]

Lisa Church, Bureau Chief of Child Nutrition Programs, [phone] Direct Line, [e-mail]

2.     Region: Southeast

3.     Eligible service providers participating in waiver and affirmation that they are in good standing:

The SFAs that would participate in this waiver are Florida Provision 2 breakfast and/or lunch operators that are NSLP and SBP sponsors in good standing who conducted a base year during school year (SY) 2019-2020. This waiver would directly impact 2 SFAs that experienced extended unanticipated school closures during SY2019-2020 while conducting a Provision 2 base year.

4.     Description of the challenge the State agency is seeking to solve, the goal of the waiver to improve services under the Program, and the expected outcomes if the waiver is granted. [Section 12(l)(2)(A)(iii) and 12(l)(2)(A)(iv) of the NSLA]:

Provision 2 base year calculations are derived from meal service participation by eligibility for each month during the base year. In Florida, monthly claims are annualized to generate eligibility claiming percentages which are applied to subsequent non-base year claims.  Florida’s Commissioner of Education Richard Corcoran responded to the COVID-19 pandemic by recommending that all Florida public and private K-12 school campuses extend campus closures through the end of the SY2019-2020.  The Provision 2 schools closed on March 16, 2020. As the pandemic continued, SBP and NSLP operations ceased for the remainder of the school year for all schools, including those establishing a base year.

For SFAs electing Provision 2, conducting a base year requires additional meal counting practices not required after the base year. Having to redo a base year because of unanticipated school closures that affected approximately 55 days of meal service at the end of a school year would create unnecessary administrative burden for sponsors. Being required to re-establish claiming percentages due to impacts of COVID-19 is difficult during an already stressful time. If SFAs are unable to annualize claiming percentages based on existing data for SY2019-2020 and are required to re-establish a base year during SY2020-2021 they would be subject to base year data validation by the State agency (SA) during the ongoing pandemic.  Establishing a base year during SY2020-2021 when closures may also be necessitated making the new base year data invalid. Many SFAs experienced increased costs to their meals service programs during the unanticipated school closures. Base year validation would require copious amounts of additional work load from SFAs since the SA would likely be conducting the validation process remotely. Documentation, including student applications and claims data, would have to be scanned and uploaded into a secure server location. The locations in Florida who are currently participating in Provision programs, may not have the staff to dedicated to the process that would require a staff person to scan the multiple two-sided scans applications for the schools if they have the access or the financial resources to procure the such technology solutions. The validation process would cause even greater burden for SFAs in this situation.

The SA seeks to solve the challenge of insufficient end of year claiming data by requesting a waiver to annualize the available valid claiming data for SFAs who had elected to establish a Provision 2 base year during SY2019-2020. An approved waiver would also help the SA improve services under the program by avoiding the potential burden of data validation if an SFA is faced with reduced claiming percentages that resulted from the unanticipated school closures.  Expected outcomes of the waiver include reduced financial impact to Provision 2 school meal programs and reduced administrative burden for SFAs in communities where students benefit

from implementation of Provision programs.

5.     Specific Program requirements to be waived (include statutory and regulatory citations). [Section 12(l)(2)(A)(i) of the NSLA]:

FDACS requests a waiver to the requirements under 7 C.F.R.245.9(b)(3)(ii) in order to annualize base year calculations using only the months that participating children were counted and claimed by eligibility under SBP and/or NSLP meals prior to school closures due to COVID19. This impacts 2 LEAs that conducted a Provision 2 base year during SY2019-2020.

6.     Detailed description of alternative procedures and anticipated impact on Program operations, including technology, State systems, and monitoring:

Standard meal counting and claiming operations were implemented from August 2019-March 2020, thus the majority of the school year was not impacted by unanticipated school closures.  As such, FDACS will annualize the existing claim data for SY2019-2020. There are is no major impacts on technology, State systems, or monitoring.

7.     Description of any steps the State has taken to address regulatory barriers at the State level. [Section 12(l)(2)(A)(ii) of the NSLA]:

FDACS continues to provide SFAs with guidance on the current regulatory requirements of the National School Lunch and Breakfast Programs, under which virtual schools and home education programs are not eligible to participate.

8.     Anticipated challenges State or eligible service providers may face with the waiver implementation:

If approved, FDACS does not anticipate challenges with implementation of the waiver as it will reduce burdens and challenges to Provision 2 sponsors and SA staff by allowing SFAs to proceed with base year data calculated during unanticipated school closures due to COVID-19. It will allow the SA to proceed with establishing annual claiming percentages to be applied to non-base years using the available meal counts for the months that schools operated SBP and NSLP during SY2019-2020.

9.     Description of how the waiver will not increase the overall cost of the Program to the Federal Government. If there are anticipated increases, confirm that the costs will be paid from non-Federal funds. [Section 12(l)(1)(A)(iii) of the NSLA]:

The establishment of this statewide waiver will not increase the overall cost to the Federal Government since SBP and/or NSLP meals would be reimbursed by the annualized Provision 2 percentages. There are no additional FDACS staff costs to implement this waiver.

10.  Anticipated waiver implementation date and time period:

The waiver would need to be effective immediately as this would impact Provision 2 base year breakfast and/or lunch meals counted and claimed under SBP and/or NSLP during SY2019-2020. The waiver would allow the annualization of the base year data to be used during the Provision 2 cycle as approved by SA.

11.  Proposed monitoring and review procedures:

FDACS will automatically calculate annual claiming percentages for use in non-base years for those sites that conducted a base year during SY2019-2020. The FDACS will continue to provide technical assistance and guidance to sponsors operating under Provision 2 as they navigate the COVID-19 outbreak.

12.  Proposed reporting requirements (include type of data and due date(s) to FNS):

FDACS will report the number of sponsors and sites that used the waiver at the end of the calendar year.