Bill Text: HI HR111 | 2023 | Regular Session | Amended
Bill Title: Requesting The Department Of Education To Develop A Strategic Plan To Meet The Locally Sourced Food Goals Established In Acts 175 And 176, Session Laws Of Hawaii 2021.
Spectrum: Strong Partisan Bill (Democrat 23-2)
Status: (Introduced - Dead) 2023-03-31 - Report adopted. referred to the committee(s) on EDN as amended in HD 1 with none voting aye with reservations; none voting no (0) and Representative(s) Gates, Ichiyama, Ilagan, Kila, Poepoe, Quinlan excused (6). [HR111 Detail]
Download: Hawaii-2023-HR111-Amended.html
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HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES |
H.R. NO. |
111 |
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THIRTY-SECOND LEGISLATURE, 2023 |
H.D. 1 |
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STATE OF HAWAII |
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HOUSE RESOLUTION
REQUESTING THE DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION TO DEVELOP A STRATEGIC PLAN TO MEET THE LOCALLY SOURCED FOOD GOALS ESTABLISHED IN ACTS 175 AND 176, SESSION LAWS OF HAWAII 2021.
WHEREAS, the Department of Education (Department) provides an estimated 120,000 meals per day to Hawaii's keiki; and
WHEREAS, pursuant to Act 175, Session Laws of Hawaii 2021 (Act 175), the Department has a school food goal of thirty percent of food served in public schools to consist of locally sourced products by 2030; and
WHEREAS, pursuant to Act 176, Session Laws of Hawaii 2021 (Act 176), each principal department of the State that purchases produce is required to ensure that a certain percentage of produce purchased is fresh local agricultural products and local value-added, processed, agricultural or food products, with a fifty percent minimum by 2050; and
WHEREAS, local farm to school and institution goals were set years out to provide the Department with ample time to coordinate with local producers to develop long-term commitments and scale production through 2050 and beyond; and
WHEREAS, the Department's existing budget for the School Food Services Program is estimated at $100,000,000, with $50,000,000 to $60,000,000 dedicated to food purchasing; and
WHEREAS, according to the Department's 2022 report to the Legislature, the Department encumbered ten percent of its total food budget on local fresh and processed food for its meal programs; and
WHEREAS, according to the Department's 2023 report to the Legislature, the Department encumbered 6.2 percent of its 2022 total food budget of $50,500,000 on local fresh and processed food for its meal programs; and
WHEREAS, according to the Department of Agriculture, in 2021-2022, Hawaii fresh produce sales for vegetables, melons, tropical fruits, eggs, bananas, papayas, and taro were $118,700,000; and
WHEREAS, the Department's local produce purchases during the 2022 calendar year are equal to 0.82 percent of a sample of Hawaii grown fresh produce sales, showing that local producers are able to provide more than enough local products to meet our local food goals; and
WHEREAS, considering that the Department buys local produce from large distributors that mark up the price charged by the farmer by an estimated 50 percent, it is likely that the Department's local produce purchases in 2022 are actually 0.54 percent of the sample of Hawaii grown fresh produce sales that can be verified with Department of Agriculture reports; and
WHEREAS, the Department has learned many valuable lessons with the Farm to School pilot programs in Kohala and Mililani, demonstrating that school menu development, local food purchasing, and scratch cooking can all provide healthy, nutritious meals to our children while also responsibly saving millions of dollars due to less waste and inefficiencies; and
WHEREAS, during the COVID-19 pandemic, the Department cancelled farm to school contracts like the Hawaii Ulu Cooperative and the ‘Aina Pono Meal of the Month program; and
WHEREAS, the Department's Farm to School Coordinator is an important position to support connecting the Department with local farmers and ranchers to increase local food procurement, however that position has been vacant for years; and
WHEREAS, the Department has stated that they will seek a central kitchen model on Oahu to achieve its local food procurement meals goal; and
WHEREAS, the centralized kitchen approach requires larger volumes of food ingredients, volumes too large for the majority of farmers, potentially putting local producers at a disadvantage; and
WHEREAS, the Department has yet to provide a strategic evaluation and plan for a centralized kitchen on Oahu in reaching its local food procurement goals as provided in Acts 175 and 176; now, therefore,
BE IT RESOLVED by the House of Representatives of the Thirty-second Legislature of the State of Hawaii, Regular Session of 2023, that the Department of Education is requested to develop a strategic plan to meet the locally sourced food goals established in Acts 175 and 176; and
BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED that the strategic plan is requested to include the following:
(1) Describing:
(A) In detail the Department's current procurement process, including the primary suppliers for food or meals for the Department (e.g., direct from a supplier versus from a food distributor or food service provider);
(B) The types of food purchases, including a breakdown by type (e.g., fresh, canned, frozen, pre-made, etc.) and by main vendor (e.g., direct from a farmer versus from a food distributor or food service provider, etc.);
(C) The types of contracts used for food procurement (e.g., long-term versus short term contracts; the frequency that contracts are open to bid; key terms of the contract; etc.) and identifying what barriers currently make it challenging to increase local food purchases;
(D) The separation of procurement duties at the cafeteria level, regional level, and departmental level; and
(E) The Department's current distribution process, including what distribution and hauling assets the Department currently has, how the majority of food is delivered to the cafeterias, and how this process would change as a result of farm-to-school efforts in a centralized cafeteria system;
(2) Providing a list of all farmers and ranchers from whom the Department currently purchases, and obtaining feedback from those farmers and ranchers on how the Department could improve its procurement and contract agreements to make regional purchasing easier;
(3) Identifying how the Department's contract requirements and provisions differ from farmers' and ranchers' typical commercial contracts;
(4) Identifying possible adjustments or needs to support more contracts and purchasing by local farmers and ranchers;
(5) Providing a list of the food distributors and food service providers from which the Department currently purchases, and obtaining feedback from those food distributors and food service providers on how contracts with the Department could increase local food content;
(6) Identifying possible adjustments or needs to support increasing purchasing by local farmers and ranchers;
(7) Identifying what crops farmers and ranchers can provide, an estimate of the volume of each crop that farmers and ranchers can supply weekly, when farmers and ranchers can provide the crops due to seasonality, and the estimated prices that farmers and ranchers would charge for their crops;
(8) Identifying whether the Department would need to invest in or contract with hauling and distribution assets and services in order for the Department to transport crops from regional farms to the centralized kitchen;
(9) Providing workshop training and guidance for farmers and ranchers who want to become qualified vendors for the Department;
(10) Identifying possible adjustments or needs to support more contracts and purchasing by local farmers and ranchers;
(11) Creating menus specific for the school districts that would be supplied by the centralized kitchen, taking into account the goal of providing at least thirty percent of food from local sources by 2030 and farm products available in the region;
(12) Creating alternate menus that could:
(A) Substitute local ingredients with imported ingredients in case of a shortage in local supply; and
(B) Substitute imported ingredients with local ingredients in case of an import supply chain disruption, as experienced during the COVID-19 pandemic;
(13) Providing a list of the ingredients needed for each meal on the menu, the vendors that could provide the ingredients, and the pounds of ingredients needed for each meal on the menu;
(14) Identifying which ingredients could possibly be provided locally and what share of the meal could potentially be locally sourced;
(15) Providing a list of local farmers and ranchers in the region that have the combined volume necessary to supply the centralized kitchen and indicating any shortfall in volume that cannot be currently provided by local farmers and ranchers for all local ingredients in each meal on the menu;
(16) Providing details on the operations of the centralized kitchen and the resulting changes to the operations of the school kitchens that would be replaced by the centralized kitchen, including:
(A) The number of breakfast, lunch, and snack meals that the centralized kitchen would produce on a typical school day (e.g., whether the centralized kitchen would provide all meal production services or whether school kitchens would still be needed for some meal production services);
(B) The number of staff needed to operate the central kitchen and the estimated salaries of the staff; and
(C) The current number of staff in the school kitchens that would be replaced by the centralized kitchen;
(17) Identifying whether the centralized kitchen strategy would require the Department to invest in more distribution workers and assets, such as vehicles, warehouse space, cold storage facilities, etc.;
(18) Providing detailed financial projections of the expected costs of the centralized kitchen versus the current costs of the school kitchens that would be replaced by the centralized kitchen;
(19) Identifying an information technology system that could track centralized kitchen and individual school kitchen purchases in sufficient detail to report local food purchases versus imported food purchases by food type, vendor, purchase amount, date of purchase, date of arrival, specific cafeteria, etc.;
(20) Providing centralized kitchen and individual school kitchen financial reports on a monthly basis; provided that these reports should include revenues (federal reimbursement and student purchases) and expenses (costs of labor, food, supplies, etc.);
(21) Tracking the student participation rate in the Department's breakfast, lunch, and snack meal program by elementary, intermediate, and high school;
(22) Identifying what operational adjustments and needs would be required to support implementation and ongoing use of such a tracking and reporting system;
(23) Implementing organizational change management for adoption of a new information technology system or upgrade; and
(24) Independently verifying and validating, if the new information technology system or upgrade costs more than $1,000,000, pursuant to section 27-43, Hawaii Revised Statutes, to ensure the success of the implementation of the new information technology system or upgrade and to adhere to the information technology governance process; and
BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED that the Department is urged to fill the vacant Farm to School Coordinator Position; and
BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED that certified copies of this Resolution be transmitted to the Chairperson of the Board of Agriculture, Chairperson of the Board of Education, and Superintendent of Education.
Farm to School; Department of Education; Strategic Plan
