The Department of Education (DOE) admitted it had egg on its face after private vendors, at a tab of $35 million, failed to deliver adequate meals to schools citywide. Due to vendor failure, for one lunch children at PS 126 on Manhattan's Lower East Side were given half a corn on the cob and hard-boiled eggs. For the same reason, children at MS 201 in the Bronx were served ravioli at lunch every day for an entire week. Nearly a dozen schools are known to have vendor problems, with some borrowing food from nearby schools to get the children fed.

The DOE says it plans to hire more vendors to fix the problem. Instead, District Council 37 and Local 372, which represent tens of thousands of school and cafeteria workers, say DOE should fix the school food delivery crisis by eliminating private food vendors and letting DOE employees do the work.

The union told the city as much in a 2002 White Paper, which estimated that DOE could save more than $15 million by assigning city workers to deliver food and meal supplies instead of paying outside vendors. More recently, two of the three additional vendors DOE wants to hire were cited in a February 2004 NYC School District's Special Commissioner on Investigation report for "low-balling" their bids.

Meanwhile, DC 37 members are currently cleaning up the vendors' mess by picking up food at distribution centers and keeping schools open late (sometimes until 10 pm) to receive these deliveries so the children can be fed.

"Now that private vendors have shown they can't handle the load - leaving school children hungry - it's time for DOE to reassign food delivery to experienced city employees," says Veronica Montgomery-Costa, President of NYC Board of Education Employees Local 372. "Hiring costly, inept private vendors for an essential service like school meals adds overhead, undermines consistent quality and shortchanges our children and our communities. Stop wasting taxpayer money and let our DOE members do the work.' "

Local 372 represents approximately 25,000 DOE employees, including delivery and cafeteria workers, throughout the five boroughs.

"The DOE says they will add more vendors to fix the problem. This is the wrong fix," says Lillian Roberts, Executive Director of DC 37. "Two years ago in our white paper we pointed out the problem with private, outside food vendors. Our members are already on the job, day in and day out, ready and able to deliver and prepare the children's meals. DOE should let our members do the work - they're doing it right now."

District Council 37, the city's largest public employee union, represents 117,000 public employees and 50,000 retirees.

DC 37 Backgrounder
School Food Delivery Crisis

DC 37 White Paper 2002 Predicted Problems
In its 2002 White Paper, DC 37 pointed out the types of problems that could arise from the school food delivery system at that time.

We proposed the following:
1. Stop using private food vendors to deliver meals/supplies to NYC schools.
2. Expand meal and supplies deliveries by DOE workers in the Office of School Food and Nutrition Services (OSFNS) warehouse distribution unit.

Here's why:

* current DOE food delivery vendor ** one of the three additional food vendors DOE is proposing to add