The marvel is what meals SDL provides on paltry budget

The Intelligencer Journal of July 14 reports "Consultants recommend improved breakfast, lunch menus" at McCaskey. This certainly would be desirable and the various suggestions listed are laudable.

But what is apparently missing from the study and certainly from the article is mention that McCaskey is producing these meals on a budget so skimpy as to awe the NewsLanc reporter experienced in restaurant management who toured their facilities and published a report here several months ago.

The assignment was triggered by the unfavorable comparison by a recent transferee of McCaskey food with that of a school outside the school district serving an affluent student body.

What became apparent was McCaskey was feeding their youngsters at a small fraction of the cost of the other school. The bulk of the McCaskey student body receives free or deeply subsidized food through federal programs, but the amount the School District of Lancaster receives from the government is hardly enough to pay for the food itself, let alone the other 60% of the cost associated with restaurant operations.

Filling the stomachs of the children on the paltry funds provided (and to keep prices down for those who are paying) requires minimizing labor and food handling. To the trained eye, the short cuts were obvious, but essential. And if the kitchen appeared "chaotic" (and when has a busy kitchen ever seemed otherwise?), food handling was designed to avoid the possibility of spoilage and food poisoning while minimizing labor costs. Yes, taste of food was subordinated to cost.

NewsLanc also pointed out that certain offerings, explicitly referring to the "rib-b-que" were so unappetizing as to be ignored. Yet it may have been thought necessary to provide this cheap meat item to meet federal guidelines and thus enable the rest of the feeding program. We just don't know and apparently neither Nutri-Tech or the Intell tried to find out.

NewsLanc takes no issue with what the consultant Nutri-Tech proposes. However, if blame for the unappetizing, albeit minimally adequate, food is to be placed, it should not be on recently retired food-service and transportation coordinator Gene Miller, but on officials and tax payers who have not been prepared to provide sufficient subsidies for a largely inner city student body whose live at below poverty or only slightly above poverty level.