Lackawanna Trail School District hired a collection service to cope with its growing student lunch debt.
School district officials first raised the idea in the fall. Since then, lunch debt has grown to about $4,000, said Keith Glynn, Lackawanna Trail’s business manager.
The school board passed a resolution in June, authorizing Creditech Collections Solutions to add its 18% fees to outstanding school lunch debt owed to the district starting this school year, 2019-20. The school district plans to cover the fees from the 2018-19 school year, said Glynn. The company’s contract with the district began July 1.
“We haven’t sent a file over yet of overdue balances,” Glynn said. “We have to work through the nuts and bolts. Right now, we’re sitting on $4,000 … We’re now looking at, can we collect on some of these balances before sending them to collections because that’s never the goal.”
Student lunch debt has become a hot-button issue across Northeast Pennsylvania. Earlier this month, officials at Wyoming Valley West School District in Luzerne County came under fire for sending letters to parents threatening to place their children in foster care if they didn’t pay school lunch debt. A Philadelphia businessman offered to donate $22,000 to eliminate the debt, which Wyoming Valley West ultimately accepted.
At Lackawanna Trail, the goal is to make sure students’ cafeteria accounts are funded so they can eat meals at school without feeling anxious, said Glynn, He added that the district works hard to comply with Pennsylvania’s law against lunch shaming, which prohibits districts from providing a low-cost, different meal to students with debt or denying them lunch outright until the debt is paid.
Creditech accepts any collection amount, though Glynn said the district believes a $50 outstanding balance or more for an individual student would be worthwhile to send out for collection.
Glynn said the district hopes more families will apply for the free and reduced lunch program, should they need it, which benefits both families and the district.
“They lost the incentive to apply when there were no repercussions for outstanding balances,” Glynn said. “The hope was to get people to apply for benefits that they’re entitled to ... and allow state and federal programs to support them.”
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bwilliams@wcexaminer.com, 570-836-2123 x36