School leaders in Buckingham are trying to figure ways to save the division’s cafeteria program and make it self-sufficient.

During a recent school board meeting, Division Superintendent Dr. Cecil Snead said that the cafeteria budget, which is separate from the division’s operating budget, has been shrinking.

Due to several factors, he said, “We all know that it’s been steadily losing money … to the point where we believe it will no longer be self-sustaining. …”

The school board voted unanimously at its June 24 meeting to grant Snead authority to enter into a contract to study the division’s food services program.

“Our cafeteria program is losing money,” Snead said after the meeting. He said the division wanted an official study to examine the issue to help guide school officials to improve the program.

Snead said the division believed the contract would be entered through the Virginia Association of School Superintendents, costing $10,000 to $12,000.

Earlier, Snead said the division had been considering ideas and had taken actions “to stop the bleeding … with the fund,” which include, according to facilities director Ivan “Chip” Davis, making the preschool’s cafeteria a satellite of the high school’s, exploring privatization of the division’s food service program, receiving assistance from the state Department of Education, and attempting to join the Southside Food Consortium.

Snead said he believes that the student participation rate in eating cafeteria meals decreases as they get older, citing the high school’s low participation rate. Two theories are food quantity and quality, he said. “There have been ongoing discussions with student groups to determine how we can interest them in the food.”

Federal guidelines, which regulate nutrition and quantity, “are such that limit her to the food quantity … [and] may even hinder the food quality that they believe [students] are used to having,” said Snead, referring to Brenda Hackett, the division’s cafeteria manager.

“It’s another option,” Snead said of potentially of privatizing food operations. “We feel like we need to explore every option in an effort to save our cafeteria programs to be self-sufficient.”

According to the Snead, the current fiscal year’s cafeteria budget is $1.15 million, about $51,000 less than last year’s.

Snead said the issue comes with the interplay between the number of lunches sold and reimbursements from the federal and state government.

About 62 percent of the cafeteria budget is composed of money from the federal government. “You only get that money if they eat [the food],” Snead said.

According to a 2014 state Department of Education national school lunch program free and reduced price eligibility report, the total free and reduced percentage in Buckingham is about 69 percent.