Observations on the National School Lunch Program's Assessment, Improvement, and Monitoring System

GAO conducted a survey to obtain information on the operation of the Food and Nutrition Service's (FNS) Assessment, Improvement, and Monitoring System (AIMS), which it implemented under interim regulations which established four standards to improve the management of the National School Lunch Program and ensure correct claims for federal program reimbursement. These standards provide that: (1) applications must be correctly approved or denied; (2) the number of meals claimed by each school must be no more than the number of children correctly approved in each school; (3) school recording systems must yield correct claims for reimbursement; and (4) meals must provide the required food components.

In the four states which GAO visited, GAO found that the local school food authorities failed to meet the first performance standard because they had more than the 10-percent error tolerance level allowed for invalid applications. In addition, GAO found that the follow-up review requirements for schools found to be not in compliance may be too lenient. Schools may fail to meet a performance standard and not be subject to another review for years. GAO found that none of the four states elected to require restitution for inaccurate meal counts on the basis of initial reviews, even though restitution was required. GAO found the second performance standard to be overly lenient as a measure of whether free and reduced-price lunch counts were excessive. In addition, GAO found that the third standard was not consistently applied. Furthermore, GAO found that the fourth performance standard does not ensure that the quantities served to each student comply with the regulations. Finally, GAO found that there is a need for a performance standard covering verification of information on applications, since ineligible children receive free meals because of inaccurate reporting of family income or size.

Recommendations

Our recommendations from this work are listed below with a Contact for more information. Status will change from "In process" to "Open," "Closed - implemented," or "Closed - not implemented" based on our follow up work.

Director: John W. Harman Team: General Accounting Office: Resources, Community, and Economic Development Division Phone: (202) 512-5138