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D.C. meal program may lose funding, IG office warns
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(Michael Riccio /For the Examiner)
Children receive a free lunch consisting of a peanut butter and jelly sandwich, a salad, a banana and a drink at the Beacon House, a local support center for children, in Washington. About 190 children stuffed their cheeks with peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, tossed salad and bananas last week at Beacon House in Northeast, one of more than 370 locations that serve free meals to low-income children during the summer as a part of the D.C. Free Summer Meals Program. The program, run by the Office of State Superintendent of Education, has received national attention for its success in reaching children, spokesman John Stokes said. But it recently received some negative scrutiny by the Office of the Inspector General. An audit of the agency found that the District was in danger of losing funding from the U.S. Department of Agriculture because it failed to reach its goal of serving 80 percent of eligible children in 2005. Stokes said that assessment is unfair, punishing the program that has a level of success other cities would envy. The free meals effort in D.C. reaches seven out of every 10 children eligible for the program, while the national average is two out of 10. “The fact that we did not reach the 100 percent goal yet does not mean that the city is at risk in losing federal funding or that we’re running an inferior program,” he said. While the program isn’t receiving the full amount of federal funding available since it is based on the amount of children it serves, it isn’t in danger of having its payments cut off said Sarah Latterner, an official at the meals program. The inspector general report blamed the agency’s failure to meet its goals on organizational and management problems, including a messy file room and a lack of a systemic filing system. Jim Weill, president of The Food Research and Action Agency, a D.C.-based national nonprofit organization that works with agencies to address hunger, said the District’s goals are “very ambitious” and that it is more successful than other programs in the country. FRAC ranked the District’s summer meals program No. 1 in the country for 2005. “There’s a very serious problem in other states around the nation in failing to reach children — that’s a national problem we’ve been dealing with for a long time,” Weill said. “The District has made more progress in the past five years than anywhere in the country.” |
