OXNARD : School Lunch Prices May Rise in January

The board of the Oxnard Union High School District directed its staff on Wednesday to further explore a proposal to raise the price of both breakfast and lunch meals served at its six campuses beginning next month.

To help cut operating costs, the district’s staff has proposed raising the price of breakfast from 75 cents to $1 and the price of lunch meals from $1.75 to $2.25. The staff recommended that the price increases, which would generate an estimated $73,000 in annual revenues, take effect Jan. 4.

Other cost-cutting measures being proposed include postponing cafeteria equipment purchases, eliminating some part-time food service positions and reducing the cost of utilities through more restrictive use policies. These actions would save the district more than $136,000 a year.

Assistant Supt. Bob Brown said the staff’s recommendations are designed to reduce General Fund expenditures and to make the district’s food service department more self-supporting.

Under the measures being proposed, Brown said, general fund money would no longer have to be used to pay medical benefits of retired food service employees, which this year will cost the district an estimated $122,000.