Student lunch account charges will cap at $30 in Wilson County where lunch debt has surpassed $10,000

WILSON COUNTY, Tenn. (WSMV) - The Wilson County School Board approved a new policy in an effort to reign in school lunch debt on its first and final reading during last night’s board meeting.

The Deputy Director of Operations, Travis Mayfield, said the district was around $9,000 in meal debt at the end of August. Mayfield said if debt progresses, the district could be close to $100,000 total in lunch debt by the end of the school year.

School officials believe many unpaid balances are not because students can’t afford lunch but are from students who refuse to pay because charging is available.

“We have students that are just refusing to pay, that won’t fill out the free and reduced lunch application, because the suspicion is they don’t qualify.” Mayfield said during the school board meeting. “Like, ‘If you’re not going to make me pay it, I’ll just charge it.’”

The school board approved a new policy last night that limits how much a student can charge to their meals account, capping it at $30. Previously, there was no limit on how much a student could charge.

The school district said if families don’t pay their meal debts at the end of the year, the school has to pay it or eventually the district might have to pay the debt.

At the end of last year’s school year, the $38,000 school lunch debt was paid first out of the principals’ lunch account which is made up of strictly community donations. Once that money ran out, principals had to dip into their general school fund to cover the debt.

The school district said students who cannot afford their school lunch will not go hungry.

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