Opt-In Waiver for SY 21-22 NSLP USDA Foods Entitlement Calculations
Food and Nutrition Service (FNS) is allowing the nationwide Opt-In Waiver for School Year 2020-2021 National School Lunch Program USDA Foods Entitlement Calculations (Entitlement Waiver) to continue for school year (SY) 2021-2022. This waiver intends to minimize the impact of SY 2020-2021 COVID-19 related school closures on State Distributing Agencies' (States) SY 2021-2022 USDA Foods entitlement.
Due to continued widespread school closures, there is a potential that reimbursable lunch counts will continue to be lower than anticipated throughout SY 2020-2021 in many states across the country. This is in part due to the fact that many states are utilizing the Nationwide Waiver to Allow Summer Food Service Program and Seamless Summer Option Operations through School Year 2020-2021 – EXTENSION to operate the Summer Food Service Program (SFSP) instead of the NSLP, and SFSP meals cannot be used to calculate the state’s USDA foods entitlement for the school meal programs.
Therefore, FNS will continue to waive Section 6(c)(1)(C) of the NSLA, for all states that elect to be subject to this waiver. For states electing into this waiver, the following will occur:
The SY 2020-2021 final assigned entitlement level will be carried forward and will be the basis for the preliminary SY 2021-2022 entitlement level which FNS will assign to states agencies in January 2021. This means that preliminary SY 2021-2022 entitlement values will continue to be based on SY 2018-2019 lunch counts.
Additionally, FNS will once again forego the annual entitlement reconciliation process in November 2021. This means that SY 2020-2021 entitlement will not be reconciled to actual SY 2020-2021 lunch counts and that the SY 2021-2022 final assigned entitlement value will continue to be based on SY 2018-2019 lunch counts.
In November 2022, reconciliation will resume as normal. In other words, FNS would plan that SY 2021-2022 USDA Foods entitlement would be reconciled to actual SY 2021-2022 lunch counts and a corresponding positive or negative balance will be carried over into SY 2022-2023 entitlement.
For states that choose not to elect into this waiver, the preliminary SY 2021-2022 entitlement assigned in January 2021 will be calculated using SY 2019-2020 lunch counts and SY 2020-2021 reconciliation will occur as normal in November 2021 using the actual number of lunches served in SY 2020-2021.
Read the full USDA memo here.
Contact your state agency to confirm if they are choosing to elect into this waiver.