IWCS bringing cafeteria management back in house

After five years of outsourcing cafeteria management, Isle of Wight County Schools is bringing its food services back in house.

Isle of Wight’s School Board voted unanimously on July 11 to approve the hiring of a director of food services, food services technician and food services administrator – three central office positions that were previously included in its nearly $3 million contract with Philadelphia-based Aramark.

In 2019, IWCS began contracting with Charlotte, North Carolina-based Chartwells to manage the cafeterias at its nine schools, and in 2023, switched to Aramark.

IWCS officials cited an audit from January among their reasons for wanting to move cafeteria management back in house.

The audit by the accounting firm Robertson Farmer Cox found IWCS had exceeded its budgeted operating expenses for the 2022-23 school year by $703,151, and found a separate roughly $562,208 deficit in the division’s cafeteria fund. The firm also audited the division’s spending of federal dollars allocated to its child nutrition program, which must be reviewed every three years if the dollar amount exceeds $750,000, and in doing so found four of a sample 40 applications for free and reduced-price school years were improperly processed. Another seven applications for students who’d qualified for free or reduced-price meals were missing.

IWCS Chief Financial Officer Liesl DeVary told the School Board she expected revenues in excess of expenses from the 2023-24 school year, which ended June 30, would cover last year’s deficit.

According to Deputy Superintendent Christopher Coleman, the three new food services hires won’t by themselves affect the 2024-25 school year’s cafeteria fund budget,  though he estimates the budget will increase by $179,640 due to what he attributed to an underestimation of 2024-25 expenses by Aramark.

IWCS budgeted $2.7 million for food services for 2024-25 but according to projections by Kathy Hicks, a former retiree of Hampton City Public Schools recently hired by Isle of Wight at the recommendation of the Virginia Department of Education, and Windsor Elementary Cafeteria Manager Mark Ruffin, IWCS should more realistically expect to spend $2.9 million.

“Our contract to provide food services at Isle of Wight County Schools has concluded,” said Aramark Vice President of Corporate Communications Chris Collom. “It is our understanding that affected employees will have the opportunity to apply for positions with (the) district. We are also working with impacted employees to access other job opportunities within our company.”

School Board Chairman Jason Maresh described the termination of the division’s Aramark contract as “taking some accountability to correct some deficiencies.”

“With the right individuals in place and the right structure in place we can make sure that we do not have those situations again,” Coleman said.

According to IWCS Human Resources Director Laura Sullivan, the school division has posted job openings online to allow cafeteria workers assigned to Isle of Wight by Aramark to apply to become in-house employees.

“Our hope is that they will apply,” Sullivan said.