Streamline central operations to increase productivity, efficiency, or accountability

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Streamline central operations to increase productivity, efficiency, or accountability - Ongoing

Input and Reconciliation of the Food Production Record Data

Food production records are created monthly and uploaded into each school-site folder. Production records are required documentation for the National School Lunch Program (NSLP) and are necessary to support the claim for reimbursement and the nutrient analysis. Therefore, we must ensure each school-site is completing these necessary records on-time and accurately.

To facilitate the efficient input and reconciliation of the food production record data for both SFS managers and office staff, we created a method in which changes that occur during any given month can be updated into the school's production records. A "Units of Measure" (UoM) table was linked to a database, which instantly updates the production records with the latest component and ingredient information. Convenient hyperlinks were also added to the UoM table to expedite Foodservice Managers’ navigation to SharePoint for current recipe viewing. A dashboard was created to aid central office staff in their monthly review of production records for recording in the Manager's Performance Summary Report.

Databases – Food Bid and Product Evaluation

In order to streamline the process by which the department evaluates and awards participating vendors, the Food Bid Database was developed. The first module, “Specs,” was developed to create standardized language when defining bid line specifications. All bid line items were entered into the Food Bid Database including product specifications and nutritional requirements where applicable. The second module, “Bid Award,” was developed to import vendor bid submittals, confirm acceptable products, reject unacceptable products and correctly award bid lines to the lowest acceptable bidder. The Food Bid Database was utilized for the new 2013-2014 school year Food Bid and Rebid process. The following reports were generated from the Food Bid database: Food Bid Specifications, Rejection Report, Master Bid Report, Internal Bid Award, and the Public Bid Award.

In addition to the Food Bid Database, a Product Evaluation Database was created to organize the evaluation process and generate a reduction in the overall quantity of paper used as reference material. Future efficiencies include linking the Food Bid Database and the Product Evaluation Database together.

SFS Management Policy #6.185

School Food Service worked with the district’s Legal Department to revise all the policies that pertain to the department. We are repealing several policies and incorporating the language into the main management policy 6.185. Policies that are being repealed and put into 6.185 include: “Food Prepared Outside the Regular School Food Service Program” 6.27, “Cost of School Meals” 6.03. Additionally the Use of Biometrics Policy #6.032 will be repealed due to not implementing the practice.

We wrote a new policy for Free and Reduced Price Meal Application process. The SFS Management Policy #6.185 and the Purchasing for School Food Service were drastically revised. All policies were routed to the proper senior staff members for signatures before being sent back to the Legal Department for preparation for the Board.