march5 2020
VERNONIA’S
volume14 issue5
free
reflecting the spirit of our community
How the VSD Handles School Lunch Debt
Student lunch debt, and how
school districts choose to deal
with families who can’t, or
don’t, pay their food service
bill, has become a national
topic of conversation
By Scott Laird
In Oregon legislators passed
HB 3454 in 2017, known as the “ban on
lunch shaming.” The bill established pol-
icies and changed the way public school
districts can legally communicate with
families about unpaid meal charges, and
requires schools to provide students with
the regular meal being served regardless
of whether the student can pay or owes
money for previous meals. School dis-
tricts cannot require a student to work in
exchange for meals, or publicly identify
students with hand stamps or bracelets.
Vernonia School District (VSD)
Superintendent Aaron Miller agrees with
this change in policy at the state level
and says the VSD has embraced it, even
though it has impacted the bottom line
of the District’s Food Service Pro-
gram.
Cherise Harbour, Fiscal
Assistant for the District, says there
might be a misconception about
the school food program – it is not
completely reimbursed by the gov-
ernment, it does not make a profit,
and it actually operates at a loss
each year.
“We want people to know
that the District does not deny kids
food, we don’t send home a slip
with the kids with their balance,
we don’t do anything through the
students concerning their balance,”
says Harbour. “There’s no conse-
quences at school if a family has a
balance. Some schools limit activi-
ties – even walking at graduation.
Some schools use debt collection
agencies. We aren’t doing any of that.”
District Business Manager Ma-
rie Knight notes the District has to pay
for food and also has to pay staff to pre-
pare and serve it. “We also have the
economy of scale – we’re a small Dis-
trict and everything is more expensive
because you have the same amount of
work, just less kids to feed.”
Harbour says prior to the chang-
es in the rules, unrecovered lunch debt
for the District was about $2,000 - 3,000
annually; now accumulated lunch debt is
over $13,000.
“We used to be able to provide
a peanut butter and jelly sandwich
and milk, and that kept charges
from rolling up,” says Miller.
“Now we can’t provide an alterna-
tive meal, and I’m perfectly fine
with that – I didn’t like that system.
We also can’t cut anybody off, so
what we have now is a significant
increase in how much families are
charging, and then not paying for
those meals.”
Miller understands there are a
number of reasons people don’t pay
their accumulated lunch debt – they
might be going through a tough
time financially or have other debts
that need to be paid. Some people
just know they don’t have to pay it.
“People understand that, no matter
what they do, if they send their student
to school, we’re going to feed them.”
One thing the District can do
is encourage families to apply for the
Free and Reduced Lunch program, says
continued on page 11
The State of Our Fire District: Part 1
A shortage of volunteers
and funding worry the
VRFPD Board of Directors
By Scott Laird
The Vernonia Rural Fire Protection
District (VRFPD) is struggling – with
high call volumes month after month,
a lack of volunteers, limited officers to
cover duty shifts, and insufficient funds
for equipment and operations. In this
3 part series, Vernonia’s Voice takes a
look at the current state of the VRFPD
and what it needs to continue providing
the service the community expects.
Imagine you’re sitting at home,
relaxing after a long day at work and
your stressful commute back to Verno-
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nia. You can smell dinner cooking as
you spend a few minutes checking your
email, or playing with your kids. Sud-
denly you hear a siren in the distance.
You can track the sound as the emergen-
cy vehicle moves across town – maybe
it heads out of town, south on Highway
47, or maybe past your house and deeper
into your neighborhood. You wonder
what might have happened, and if you
know the person who might be experi-
encing a life threatening crisis.
But this is not an imaginary
scenario – if you live in town you hear
those sirens on a regular basis. For the
volunteers and paid personnel at the Ver-
nonia Rural Fire Protection District, it’s
especially real. When those sirens sound
they have to put that meal and their re-
laxation time on the back burner and
respond – quickly. It’s a scenario that
is happening more and more frequent-
ly, year after year.
In 1997 VRFPD responded to
250 calls for service with 26 volun-
teers. By 2018 the number of calls
had jumped to 710 and the number of
volunteers was down to 12; those calls
included 16 fires, 471 rescue or emer-
gency medical calls, and 14 calls that
involved hazardous conditions.
The VRFPD has two full-time,
paid responding personnel on their
staff – Chief Dean Smith and Training
Captain Will Steinweg; they just added
a third, part-time paid position – Re-
cruitment and Retention Officer Rob
Davis. His position is being shared
with Mist-Birkenfeld RFPD and is
funded for one year with a grant, while
Steinweg’s Training Captain position
is paid for with a five-year levy set to
expire next year. Both Chief Smith
and Captain Steinweg are being over-
worked as the call volume across the
District continues to increase.
“We have an excellent base with
Chief Smith and Captain Steinweg,”
says VRFPD Board member Jesse Har-
bour. “But it’s important that we keep
building on their strengths and what
we’re accomplishing. But having them
work 300-400 hours a month is not sus-
tainable, and that’s a real worry for the
Board.”
I sat down recently with Har-
bour and Board member Ben Davis to
discuss the current state of the VRFPD,
and talk about their concerns and some
possible solutions.
Harbour was appointed to the
VRFPD Board of Directors in May of
2019 to fill an empty seat, after serving
for eight years as a volunteer firefighter
and a Lieutenant with the District.
Davis has served on the Board
for five years. He works as a paid fire-
fighter and paramedic with the rank of
Lieutenant at Columbia River Fire and
Rescue, where he has served the com-
munities of St. Helens and Rainier since
2005. He got his start in fire service as a
volunteer with VRFPD in 1999 and con-
tinued until he was elected to the Board.
As a volunteer in Vernonia Davis was a
Lieutenant and a Deputy Chief, and also
held the position of Training Captain for
a time.
The Fiscal Picture
For the 2020-21 fiscal year the
VRFPD has a $483,900 annual budget
which includes their share of property
taxes from Columbia County, the cur-
rent levy for the Training Captain posi-
tion, and a bond passed in 2015 which is
paying for a new pumper/tender engine.
VRFPD spends 56% of their budget on
personnel and benefits; 4% on capital
outlay (equipment that is intended to last
longer than 10 years, like turnouts and
breathing apparatus, hoses, and rescue
equipment); 20% on materials and ser-
vices (fuel costs, utilities, organization-
al dues, repairs to equipment); 2% for
debt services which is currently paying
for one of two command rigs; and 17%
in unappropriated funds (contingency
funds for unplanned expenses, and re-
serves).
continued on page 3