Price of School Lunches May Rise

After 13 years, Moorpark school board members are considering raising the price of student lunches.

Board members tonight will vote on whether to increase the elementary school lunch price from $1.50 to $1.75 and middle and high school lunches from $2 to $2.50.

The new prices would be comparable to the price of lunch in schools in Simi Valley and Conejo Valley.

“If they haven’t raised the price in 13 years, then it was inevitable,” said Steve Carr, a Moorpark High School parent.

The district’s food providers spend $1 million every year on the lunch program, half of which is used to pay for salaries, said Camille Plante, director of child nutrition.

“We’ve been able to keep the price down over the years because employee salaries had leveled off,” she said. “We were also making money off of our catering and buying food in larger quantities.”

But food prices and employee salaries have increased, making it harder to hold down the prices.

“The biggest reason for raising the price now is because the cost of paper went up [about] 10%,” Plante said.

Food services spends a significant portion of their budget on paper goods such as trays, cups, bags and napkins.