With school districts already having been buffeted by numbers — the stagnant state funding, the upticks in insurance, the jumps in fuel costs — the newest figures are even harder to swallow.

"Milk is up 35 percent from last year," Damian Andrews, Harper Creek Community Schools' food service director, told the school board in June. "Some items are up 70 percent from two years ago. It's getting out of control."

As school districts prepare to open their doors this fall, many have had to grapple with the latest item in a seemingly unending list of cost pressures: rising global food prices and their effect on school meals.

The higher cost of staples like cheese, milk and whole-grain bread — brought on by inflated demand for corn and skyrocketing transportation costs — has presented schools across the country with a conundrum: keep healthy options and pay through the roof or skimp to stay on budget.

With no slowdown in sight, necessary food items — milk, rice, pasta, cheese and bread — experienced double-digit percentage increases in price in 2007, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture's Economic Research Service.

Food service departments, which typically operate apart from school districts' general fund budgets, strive to either break even or make money with help from government subsidies. But if they fall behind, the district must use its general fund to patch the gap.

Schools that receive money from the U.S. Department of Agriculture to subsidize meals also are required to stick to nutrition guidelines, such as limits on fat intake and how many different food groups are offered.

And while the latest round of price increases makes it harder to adhere to those guidelines, most local districts have chosen to keep nutrition a priority.

"As a director, I can look at it and say, 'Am I going to buy the cheapest food out there, or am I going to keep the quality and integrity of the food?'" Paul Yettaw, director of food service at Lakeview School District, said. "For me, I'm not going to reduce the quality of the food because it wouldn't be fair to the kids."

Lakeview is a member of a statewide food co-op, Michigan SPARC, that pools money and buys in bulk to get discounts from distributors like Sysco Corp. and Gordon Food Service.

These bulk purchases, referred to as buying in "commodity dollars," are supplemented by a la carte purchases on the open market. Districts often go to the open market when they run out of an item.

Yettaw said Lakeview this year raised meal prices by a dime for all elementary and secondary meals. Milk prices, which were raised by a nickel in the summer of 2007, have stayed put this year.

Additionally, Yettaw said there was more pressure to accurately predict at the beginning of the year what the district needed to spend in bulk so that expensive a la carte purchases would be kept to a minimum.

"Looking at your co-op, using your commodity dollars and finding out what items are there — that you can leverage," Yettaw said. "But it takes work."

Harper Creek, which hadn't raised its meal prices in at least nine years, finally did so in June. The board approved a 20-cent increase in meals across the board.

"I could put as many numbers and percentages and anything in front of you," Andrews, who is an employee of Chartwells Food Service, told trustees at the meeting. "We've all been to the store; we all know where the prices are going."

The board has asked Andrews to increase breakfast and lunch offerings to match the price increase.

Pennfield Schools, also a SPARC member, is planning to revive talk about its meal program next semester, Business Manager Marcia Ellison said.

Even with building pressure to increase meal prices, Yettaw said the school lunch remains a steal for families on a tight budget.

"Where else can you get five (different food) components for a buck eighty-five?" he asked. "Show me a restaurant that is going to serve you that amount of food for the same price."

Photo cutlines: Denise Wilson, of Lakeview School District, makes lunches for summer school lunch program. Kevin Hare/The Enquirer.

Ryan Holland can be reached at 966-0690 or rholland@battlecr.gannett.com