New system allows school to reduce cash on hand

SALISBURY — A few weeks into a new system for the lunchroom at Salisbury Central School, and things are running pretty smoothly.

In October, Roger Rawlings, chairman of the Board of Education, and Board of Education Clerk Sue Bucceri briefed the Board of Finance on the new computerized system for lunches at Salisbury Central School.

Each child is assigned a four-digit number. At lunch, the child gives the number to the cashier, and a photo of the child appears on the cash register’s computer screen for verification purposes.

Parents have the option of paying into their child’s lunch account by credit card or debit card, or to bring a check to the school.

The online credit or debit card transaction carries a 5.75 percent service fee from the service provider; a personal check does not.

Parents can also use their account to track what their child is buying. In fact, parents can use the online service for that reason alone, and continue to send in checks (and avoid the service fee).

The meals cost $2.25 per day.

The idea is to get cash out of the equation. Bucceri said in the first 13 days of November the school deposited $3,133 in cash from lunches.

In the first 13 days of December, the cash amount dropped  to $893.50.

During those 13 December lunch days, the cafeteria averaged 153 patrons using accounts, and 20 using cash.

Ultimately the system can be used for a broad range of activities that require some expenditure from parents, such as field trips.

Bucceri showed a visitor how it all works Monday.

The first wave of youngsters — kindergarteners —  appeared in the cafeteria a little after 11 a.m. Their teacher had an attendance sheet with her.

Bucceri explained that the youngest children have trouble remembering their four-digit number, so the teachers keep track of who is buying lunch and the cashier enters the information into the system afterward.

The first-graders had no difficulty entering their numbers, and it looked to this reporter like an efficient system.

Before the new system there were five different people handling cash and lunch tickets in both buildings of Salisbury Central School. Now, said Bucceri, it’s just her and the cashier.

The desire to reduce the number of cash transactions at the school followed after the case of former Salisbury Board of Education Clerk Lori Tompkins, who began a three-year prison sentence in March after pleading no contest to stealing $110,000 from board and school funds.

In an April 2010 interview, Rawlings described the fiscal sleight of hand Tompkins used — actions that caused a great deal of trouble but have also resulted in a much more rigorous oversight process.

The student activity account, which Tompkins manipulated to her advantage (for example, writing checks to the bus company for non-existent field trips, and then erasing the company’s name and substituting her own)  is now computerized; the checks cannot be doctored.

Reconciliation of accounts is now handled at Town Hall (instead of by the board clerk), and has led to the debit system for school lunches and field trips.

But none of this mattered to the 40-odd kids trooping in for cheese quesadillas during the first of four lunch shifts Monday. They punched their numbers into the keypad with no difficulty at all, and if any cash changed hands, this reporter missed it.