NCSD takes families to small claims for overdue lunches, unpaid fees

Newton Community School District has taken at least 20 families to small claims court this year over overdue lunch balances and equipment/textbook fees.

According to court documents and school records obtained by Newton News, the total amount of money the district is suing for exceeds $23,000. The district has consistently pursued small claims court cases since 2019. But this year’s 22 cases is the most they ever filed. It’s more than the past three years combined.

Iowa Courts Online shows the district pursued nine cases in 2019, 11 cases in 2020, six cases in 2021, one case in 2022 and 10 cases in 2023. School data shows of the 22 active small claims court cases Newton filed, one case dates back to 2019, five cases in 2023 and 17 cases in 2024.

Fees range from as low as $451 to as high as $1,741.

Newton News contacted families who had received notices from the school district, and although their cases and names are public record they had asked to remain anonymous. While many agreed they should pay the fines, parents were still frustrated over the strict guidelines for free or reduced lunch applications.

“I make $200 more than what the guidelines were. So I was denied. I’m doing the best I can,” one parent said. “I will pay them, but I’m waiting for my tax return.”

Qualifications for free and reduced lunches are based on household income and the number of people living in the household. According to the Iowa Department of Education, more than 54 percent of students in the Newton Community School District in the 2023-2024 school year are eligible for free or reduced price lunch.

Which means Newton Community School District is 14 percent above the state average of more than 40 percent for free or reduced meals. Two of the seven buildings in the school district, Emerson Hough Elementary and WEST Academy, offer free hot lunch and breakfast to all students.

Other families are frustrated over the price increases to meals over the past few years, as well as other fees like registrations. Parents with large fees owed to the district say it will be difficult to pay back, but perhaps even more so for single-parents. Many expressed a wish to go back to COVID-era meal perks.

During the 2020-2021 and 2021-2022 school years, students in the Newton school district received free breakfasts and lunches thanks to funding from the federal government. But even back then the school district encouraged families to still fill out free or reduction meal applications.

Newton Superintendent Tom Messinger said an adverse effect from the free meals ending was that people had become accustomed to the practice and did not fill out free or reduced meal applications. Now, he said, the district has to get people back in the habit of filling out the forms, which can be done at any time.

“If you qualify, great,” Messinger said in a followup interview with Newton News. “The worst thing that happens is that you wasted a couple minutes filling out the form. I feel like it’s gotten better now, but at the beginning (of the free meal cutoff) it was very tough.”

The district has been combating overdue meal charges for some time. Julie Miller, the food service supervisor, told the school board in January that the district had almost $20,000 in overdue meal charges, and that the deficit only continued to climb. At that time, 28 families had negative balances over $200.

Currently, the school district’s meal deficit is at $28,134.

Families are notified daily of their lunch account balances and provide information on how to pay: online through Infinite Campus, calling the food service department to make a payment over phone or sending funds with students to school to turn in to the main office.

Accounts with negative balances are blocked from purchasing à la carte items, second meals or milk to go with home lunch.

Hot lunches are still provided to students with negative balances.

Messinger said it is challenging for school districts to collect their money, and he knows that deficits can add up quickly when families have multiple kids enrolled in the district. Family accounts with at least two elementary-age students can generate up to $10 in meals per day.

“It may seem punitive, but realistically we’re just trying to get the fees that are accumulated along the way,” Messinger said. “I don’t know exactly when the policy started here. But the number of unpaid fees as part of this process have declined. A couple years ago we had some high unpaid balances.”

Tim Bloom, business services director for the Newton school district, said when he started in the school district in 2018 the audit report showed a $58,997 deficit in just hot meal fees, both breakfasts and lunches. One of the families at that time, Bloom said, owed more than $1,800 to the district.

Prior to pursing unpaid fees through small claims court, Bloom said the district would send the bills to a collection agency but with little success.

Small claims court seemed like the easiest method for the school district to get its money back. But Bloom said Newton is looking at alternative ways to get its fees.

“There is an adjustment so when you file your taxes it would just come off your tax refund,” Bloom said of a method that would require collaboration with the state. “So we could apply it that way. We’re in the process of trying to find out how to do that because some other schools do that.”

Messinger reiterated that free or reduced meal applications are to be filled out annually and can be filled out at any time of the year. Bloom said the school district charges an annual textbook fee to each student, but those fees can also be waived.

Taking families to small claims court is not something the Newton school district wants to do, Messinger said. Right away it causes conflict between the school and families, but the superintendent said some aspects of the school have to be treated as a business.

“This is, realistically, the only way we know we can get the money back,” he said.

Bloom pointed to the 2023 action from the Minnesota Legislature providing free school meals for all kids as a possible legislative solution.

“If the state were to contribute something toward that, then that would help,” he said. “Right now the federal government changed the (Community Eligibility Provision) so we could provide free lunch. However, the reimbursement we’d receive from the federal government is not enough to cover operating costs.”