Senator Mcgovern. Thank you very much, Mr. Carpenter. I think before we address questions to you we will have Dr. Perryman's statement, and then we will question you jointly.

STATEMENT OF DR. JOHN N. FERRYMAN, EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, AMERICAN SCHOOL FOOD SERVICE ASSOCIATION; ACCOMPANIED BY SAM VANNEMAN, WASHINGTON, D.C., REPRESENTATIVE

Dr. Perryman. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

I am John Perryman, executive director, and I have Mr. Sam Vanneman, Washington representative of our association, with me.

Mr. Chairman, it is a high privilege and a responsibility of massive proportion to appear before you today as a representative of more than 200 American school service association State and local legislative chairman here assembled, as a representative of our 60,000 members throughout the Nation, and most significantly of all, a spokesman for the more than 60 million schoolchildren throughout the Nation.

I consider it an honor to state the cause of the children today before you, Senator McGovern, inasmuch as I have had the opportunity to work with you ever since the days of your leadership as director of the food-for-peace program few people know better than I your years of dedication to the cause of human nutrition. And I would certainly wish to add the appreciation of our association to the bipartisan support that we have received from this committee, to pay tribute, Senator Percy, to the enthusiastic support that you have given to our programs.

We appreciate the participation of Senator McGovern in our meeting yesterday and regret, Senator Percy, that previous commitments made your participation impossible.

We were disappointed. Your dedication has been to the needs of all people. Our dedication is also.

Child Nutrition Basic Purpose

We do not mean to cry wolf, and we regret the necessity to come in alarm to the halls of Congress year after year. However, our child nutrition programs must be defended year after year from those who would encroach upon their basic purpose—to provide sound nutrition for all children of the Nation.

This year our problems are more far-reaching than usual.

First, the cost of food.

With food costs increasing 22 percent in 1973 and another 9 percent in January of 1974, school districts have been hard pressed to keep from pricing the paying child out of the lunchroom.

P.L. 93-150 has done much to stave off disaster, but meal costs across the Nation have risen.

Following is a statement of those costs.

Average charge to the child

1972 elementary: Amount

Low $0.25

High .50

Average • 35

1972 secondary: •

Low : • 30

High .55

Average . 408 1973 elementary:

Low .25

High 55

Average . 414

1973 secondary:

Low . . 35

High 60

Average . 469

To the 16 million paying children in the program, such increases hurt.

Without question, we have made advances. Public Law 93-150 is an excellent piece of legislation. The following gains have been made: Section 4 reimbursement rate increases from 8 to 10 cents. Special assistance factor increases for free (40.45) and reduced (30.35) lunches. Increased reimbursements for breakfast to 8 cents. Cash in lieu of commodities.

Escalator clause based on "food away from home" index. Increased eligibility standards for reduced-price meals from 50 percent to 75 percent of poverty guidelines (effective until June 30).

Overall USDA evaluation of child feeding programs with consultation from allied associations, groups and organizations.

USDA to explore the Universal Food Service Program as an alternate to present school lunch programs.

I will not elaborate on those points except I would draw particular attention to point 6, the increased eligibility standards, the fact that these are effective only until June, that this will not give a good indication of the response of schools.

Many school administrators are understandably very reluctant to embark upon a program with so uncertain a future.

The benefits of lunch at school have been extended to nearly 9 million additional children now receiving free- and reduced-price meals in the past 5 years. However, on a paying basis, the lunch program has reached only an additional 2.5 million children in the same period of time and in the current school year we have lost 40,000 of them altogether.

Miss Martin, our legislative chairman, has presented me with the Department of Agriculture figures. Mr. Chairman, these figures would indicate that number would more accurately exceed 600,000.

These figures lead us to our second major concern. We believe the administration is moving away from the concept of nutrition programs for all children and is moving toward making child nutrition programs another welfare activity.

The proposed transfer of child nutrition from the Department of Agriculture to the Department of Health, Education, and Welfare, we see as a step in this direction. Such a transfer would likely have ourprograms lumped together with food stamps.

We fear loss of identity for school food service as a means of providing sound nutrition across the board to all schoolchildren. We serve the nutritionally-needy, not just the economically-needy.

Our third concern has to do with the failing support of commodities.

The basic question here is not whether commodities per se will be continued. The basic question is whether commodities or their equivalent value will be continued.

At the present time we have lost the economic bases of price support and surplus crop removal. But we still retain, now as permanent legislation, the provision of cash in lieu of commodities.

If commodities are totally done away with as a frame of reference, what guarantee have we that the 7 cents worth of value per meal will not be lost altogether?

Our request to the Department of Agriculture that such assurances be given has not received a definitive answer.

It should be further noted that if the commodity program were to be abandoned, a new constituency would need to be found to provide a political base for school food service. From its very inception, school food service has found strong support in the farm bloc in the Congress.

Our fourth major concern is the renewed threat of revenue-sharing. In his state of the Union message just a few weeks ago President Nixon made 10 points, two of them bearing directly upon educational revenue-sharing.

The first of these points promises to continue the new federalism, to provide Federal revenues to local communities to make their own decisions.

The second point calls for a change in Federal aid to education to permit local communities more flexibility so that the money would go "when it was needed, where it was needed."

Local Option Could Eliminate Nutrition Programs

Clearly, this is a call for local option to permit Federal revenues previously earmarked for child nutrition programs to be used in other ways in the educational system at the discretion of local communities.

If this development is permitted to take place, Mr. Chairman, in our judgment we shall actually receive only a fraction of the moneys the Congress intended for the purpose of feeding children.

Mr. Chairman, just because our child nutrition programs are food programs, there is no need to keep nibbling at them.

When are we going to stop a piecemeal approach which provides a few pennies per meal in one law and a crust of bread in another?

We have an unbelievably involved and complicated labyrinth of legislation, top heavy with those laws and regulations which strive to . determine how much a child shall pay for his meal depending upon how much his family earns a year.

Universal School Food Program Would End Segregation

We would call again for a universal school food service program, a program which would end economic segregation in the lunchroom, a program that would treat all children alike as in a democracy they should be treated.

There are approximately 51 million families in the United States. Of this number, approximately 10 million are in such a low economic bracket that their children qualify for free- or reduced-price meals.

At the other end of the economic spectrum there are approximately 2 million families whose income is above $25,000 per year.

In between these two extremes we find the great middle-class backbone of our Nation—30 million families that are trying to meet their obligations, pay their bills, pay their taxes, keep up with inflation and help pay for the food of those children less fortunate than their own.

In a time of cutbacks and embargoes, let us have no shortage of food for any of our children. How wonderful if, for once, we did something to help middle America and provided a sound meal at school to every child in the Nation who desired it.

Answer To Concerns And Crises Of Food Programs

Such a program properly designed and properly funded would mean an answer for every one of the concerns expressed in this statement. If the price of food continues to rise, a family would at least know that its children would be properly fed at school. No family in America would be priced out of the school lunchroom or into the stigma of pauper's care.

The question of cash versus commodities would become largely academic, as would the administrative unit. Earmarked funding would place the feeding of the Nation's children on a guaranteed basis, secure from internal jealousies and intradistrict rivalry.

Isn't it ridiculous, Mr. Chairman, that in this land of ours the feeding of our schoolchildren is not guaranteed?

The late Senator Russell described the School Lunch Program by saying, "This program contributes more to the cause of public education in the United States than has any other policy which has been adopted since the creation of free public schools."

The question is a particularly fitting one since it is the same policy of public well-being which prompted an end to pauper's schools. It is the very policy we should adopt to put an end to pauper's food and to guarantee good nourishment in school for all our children. The basics are simple:

1. Children are required to go to school.

2. Children work hard at school for long hours.

3. Children get hungry at school.

Let's feed them one and all alike. Let's put an end to the ifs, ands, and buts. Let's stop quibbling about which department, which form of currency, coin or commodity we use to get the job done.

Let us build legislation of such purity, such clear definition of purpose, that no schoolchild in the United States ever goes hungry again.

Senator Mcgovern. Thank you very much, Dr. Perryman, for that very fine statement, and also to you Mr. Carpenter, for your excellent testimony.

I want to direct a question to you, Mr. Carpenter.

When Mr. Hekman was here, he made reference to the fact that of the commodities that go into our School Lunch Program today, 80 percent are purchased locally, and approximately 20 percent comes in the form of donated Federal commodities. The implication of that is that we shouldn't be too much concerned about the loss of the Federal portion. After all, it's only 20 percent.

What is your reaction to that?

Need For USDA Commodities

Mr. Carpenter. Well, there are several reactions. It has been stated that there are some major city directors who have a sophisticated program when they can buy, write the specifications, make certain of delivery and all this. There would be a few that if they received that 7 cents might turn this into 10 cents.

The great majority, however, of the schools that are participating are smaller. In some States the greater majority of the schools do not have that sophistication to purchase and turn the 7 cents into 10 cents. Rather they have the built-in capacity right now to take the 7 cents worth of commodities and by doing baking, even loaf breads, weiner buns or hamburger buns, to turn that into as much as 13 or 14 cents.

Another thing about the receipt of commodities; we must give the USDA credit, we feel, for purchasing quality. Now, we have been talking about quantity. But the commodities we receive are quality commodities. It is difficult for many schools to go out and purchase the same quality of commodity.

For example, ground beef; the USDA specifications are excellent. The USDA says, well, we will turn those specifications over to the smaller schools. This won't solve the problem, though.

Senator Mcgovern. Where is the small school district in Iowa, Minnesota, South Dakota going to get the expert purchasers, graders, inspectors—the people that are going to maintain the quality of this program? Where do those experts come from, and who pays for it? Is the 7 cents going to cover all of that, plus the content of the donated commodities?

Mr. Carpenter. No, sir. It certainly will not pay for the additional expertise required, and it certainly will not pay for the extra manhours required. Those people with the expertise are just not readily available and won't be available. The school could not afford to employ them.

Senator Mcgovern. Do you have any curbstone estimate of what that Federal contribution in commodities would be worth to you if you had to duplicate it in cash?

Mr. Carpenter. You mean the 7 cents?

Senator Mcgovern. Instead of the 7-cent "cost" to the Federal Government that comes to you in the form of donated commodities that are purchased, graded, and inspected by experts, if you had to replace that with cash, how much cash would be needed to replace it?

Mr. Carpenter. If we were to do this on a State level—with inflationary costs the way that they are—I think it would be fair to say that perhaps from 5 to 7 cents of the 7 cents would be dissipated in the organization that one would have to have to do this.

We do not have it in our State, and our State agency happens to handle or distribute the commodities in Iowa. A number of food service agencies do not. We do not have that organization available.

Another thing, sir. I'm not sure that the State of Iowa would want to contribute the funds—another $70 to $90 thousand—to hire that type of personnel.

Senator Mcgovern. A question here, Dr. Perryman. Included in your statement is something that I find very intriguing.