1. Tatia Prieto, Ed.D., MBA, PMP
Program Assessment
CSNA Conference June 13, 2018
Donna Wittrock, M.A., SNS
Tatia Prieto, Ed.D., MBA, PMP

2. Class Outline How We Came to Embrace Data
Key Performance Indicators (KPIs), Best Practices, & Benchmarks
Practical Application
Resources

3. How We Came to Embrace Data

4. Key Performance Indicators, Best Practices, and Benchmarks

5. What’s the Difference?
KPIs – measuring the important things in your program
Best Practices – industry recommendations
Benchmarking – comparing yourself over time or to other programs

6. Most Common KPIs Meal Counts and Participation Financial
Meal Equivalents (MEQ or ME)
Average Daily Participation (ADP)
Financial
Revenue
Expenditures
Operating Ratios
Productivity and Labor
Meals Per Labor Hour (MPLH)

7. Some Basics - ME Meal Equivalents In Colorado for 2017-18:
1 lunch = 1 ME
3 breakfasts = 2 ME
3 snacks = 1 ME
$3.57 = 1 ME

8. Some Basics - ME Why Should I Calculate MEs?
200 lunches
100 breakfasts
150 snacks
$100 in vending sales
150 lunches
125 breakfasts
100 snacks
$150 in adult lunches
$125 in vending sales or
Which school requires more labor?
We need to calculate MEs to decide!

9. Some Basics - ME
Colorado DOE makes it easy!

10. Hmm. Maybe liver and onions is not such a great idea…
ADP

11. I’m a rock star this year!
ADP

12. Where to Get Financial Data
Recognize this?

13. How to Use Those Financial Data
Revenues/Expenditures
$5,545,878 / $5,123,879 = 1.08
Revenue/ME
$5,545,878 / 1,428,660 = $3.88
Costs/ME
$5,123,879 / 1,428,660 = $3.59
The $ data come from CDE5!
The ME figure can be inferred from CDE5 – do you know how?
What do you see?

14. Operating Ratios Costs as a percentage of revenue
Instead of Rev / Exp, you can look at Costs / Revenue
100% - break even
Less than 100% - more revenue than expenditures
More than 100% - losing $
(Food Costs) / Revenue and (Labor Costs) / Revenue
Goal is no more than 80-85% for food and labor
This is a Best Practice

15. How to Use Those Operating Ratios
The $ data come from CDE5!
Costs/Revenues
$5,123,879 / $5,545,878 = 92%
(Food Costs) / Revenue
($2,052,430 + $439,561) / $5,545,878 = 45%
(Labor Costs) / Revenue
($1,789,484 + $561,840) / $5,545,878 = 42%
Food you paid for + Value of USDA food
Salaries + Benefits
What do you see?

16. MPLH – (ME)/(Labor Hours)
Measure of Productivity

17. MPLH – Pop Quiz! Which one has higher productivity?
Orange ES has an MPLH of 9.5 (on ME of 145)
Blueberry Hill HS has an MPLH of 13.5 (on ME of 325)
Which one has higher productivity?
Which one is doing better?

18. MPLH
Needs work!

19. MPLH
What do you think?

20. Best Practices
Industry Recommendations – nothing to be afraid of, we promise
Keys to Excellence Best Practices
SNA
Defines national standards
Provides framework for program review, evaluation, and improvement

21. Benchmarking Also nothing to be afraid of
SNA Operations Report: the State of School Nutrition 2016 Benchmarks
Council of the Great City Schools Performance Measurement and Benchmarking Project

22. Practical Application

23. Practical Application
Lucky you! You’ve got a new superintendent. He’s been in the district all of 10 minutes and tells you he doesn’t think the kids like school food since “they stopped letting us serve pizza and fries every day.”
What’s up your sleeve?

24. Practical Application
ADP!
Our ADP
HUSSC
Last Year
This Year
Silver Level
Gold Level
Orange ES
70%
76%
60%
75%
Mullberry MS
65%
77%
Blueberry Hill HS
50%
54%
45%
These are Best Practices from HUSSC

25. Practical Application
You’ve got three cafeterias in your district, each with the same staffing. One of the cafeteria managers is constantly complaining that she doesn’t have enough help. She also says that, as the biggest school, she should “obviously” have the largest staff.
What’s up your sleeve?

26. Practical Application
Cafeteria Productivity, using ME and MPLH
Enrollment
Breakfasts
Lunches ME
Labor Hours
MPLH
Target Range
Doing Well?
Orange ES
350 50
325
267 18 15
13-15
Grape ES
375
275
233 13
12-14
Lemon ES
500 40
250
207 11

27. Practical Application
That new superintendent is just back from a conference. He’s heard that school districts can “always” save big money by outsourcing food service. He’s also worried about the rising cost of employee health care and you’ve got 50 employees in your department. You know what he’s thinking…
What’s up your sleeve?

28. Practical Application
Operating Ratios!
This Year
Costs / Revenue
92%
(Food Costs) / Revenue
42%
(Labor Costs) / Revenue
41%
I’m a rock star this year!
How are you doing financially?
How are your labor costs doing?

29. Practical Application
Whew! You’ve got three years of great operational data pulled together.
How do things look?
Let’s go year by year…

30. Practical Application – Year 1
# Student Breakfasts Served
200
# Student Lunches Served
600
# Adult Breakfasts $1.50 5
# Adult Lunches $4 10
Vending Machine Revenues $0 ME
747
Year 1
Revenue from Student Meals
$1,000
Local Non-Program Revenue
$48
State
$150
Federal
$2,000
Total Revenue
$3,198
Year 1
Purchased Food and Milk
$1,500
Salaries
$950
Benefits
$475
Equipment $0
Indirect Cost
Total Expenditures
$2,925
Year 1
Expenditures / Revenues
91%
Revenues / ME
$4.28
Expenditures / ME
$3.92
Food / Revenues
47%
Labor / Revenues
45%
What do you see?

31. Practical Application – Year 1
Some things we see:
Maybe there's room for growth in breakfast.
There's definitely room for growth in adult meal sales.
Why aren't we doing any vending sales?
Shouldn't we be spending something on equipment?
That new superintendent has noticed we aren't paying indirect, so guess what will happen next year…
Some things we see in the KPI/BP/BM:
Exp/Rev ratio is good.
Rev/ME compared to Exp/ME is good.
Food/Rev ratio is too high.
Labor/Rev is at the edge of too high.

32. Practical Application – Year 2
# Student Breakfasts Served
300
# Student Lunches Served
550
# Adult Breakfasts $1.50 20
# Adult Lunches $4 40
Vending Machine Revenues
$150 ME
845
Year 2
Revenue from Student Meals
$750
Local Non-Program Revenue
$340
State
$175
Federal
$1,900
Total Revenue
$3,165
Year 2
Purchased Food and Milk
$1,700
Salaries
$975
Benefits
$485
Equipment
$175
Indirect Cost
$300
Total Expenditures
$3,635
Year 2
Expenditures / Revenues
115%
Revenues / ME
$3.74
Expenditures / ME
$4.30
Food / Revenues
54%
Labor / Revenues
46%
What do you see?

33. Practical Application – Year 2
Some things we see:
Breakfast sales are up – that’s good!
Adult breakfast and lunch sales are up – that’s good!
Student lunch sales are down. Hmm…
We’re making some money from our new vending machines!
Revenue from student meals is down. Hmm…
We started investing in equipment – that’s good!
That new superintendent is now charging for indirect.
Some things we see in the KPI/BP/BM:
Exp/Rev ratio is more than 100% – what does that mean?
Rev/ME has dropped a lot and Exp/ME has gone up a lot.
Food/Rev ratio is too high, and even worse than last year.
Labor/Rev ratio has crossed the line and is now too high.

34. Practical Application – Year 3
# Student Breakfasts Served
350
# Student Lunches Served
610
# Adult Breakfasts $1.50 35
# Adult Lunches $4 60
Vending Machine Revenues
$275 ME
1,002
Year 3
Revenue from Student Meals
$1,025
Local Non-Program Revenue
$568
State
$180
Federal
$2,100
Total Revenue
$3,873
Year 3
Purchased Food and Milk
$1,700
Salaries
$1,050
Benefits
$495
Equipment
$175
Indirect Cost
$310
Total Expenditures
$3,730
Year 3
Expenditures / Revenues
96%
Revenues / ME
$3.86
Expenditures / ME
$.72
Food / Revenues
44%
Labor / Revenues
40%
What do you see?

35. Practical Application – Year 3
Some things we see:
Breakfast sales are up some more – continued progress!
Adult breakfast and lunch sales are up – continued progress!
Student lunch sales are the highest of all three years – that’s great!
We’re making more money from our new vending machines!
Revenue from student meals is way up – that’s great!
We’ve continued investing in equipment – that’s good!
Some things we see in the KPI/BP/BM:
Exp/Rev ratio is back below 100% – you’re a rock star again!
Rev/ME has increased since last year, while Exp/ME has decreased – good!
Food/Rev ratio is now in the best practices range.
Labor/Rev ratio is now in the best practices range.

36. Resources

37. Resources
Council of the Great City Schools (2017). Managing for Results in America’s Great City Schools.
Domain/4/Managing%20for%20Results%20- % pdf
Rushing, K. (2017). Essential KPIs for School Nutrition Success. Hattiesburg, MS: Institute of Child Nutrition, Applied Research Division pdf
School Nutrition Association (2016). School Nutrition Operations Report: The State of School Nutrition 
Keys to Excellence: Standards of Practice for Nutrition Integrity
on,_Education_and_Professional_development/3_Keys _to_Excellence/Keys-to-Excellence-Standards.pdf

38. Resources
Lots of Good Colorado Stuff: trainingresources
Colorado Meal Equivalent Tool: rmealequivalenttool
Colorado MPLH Reference:
aborhour

39. Questions?

40. Don’t be afraid to crunch the numbers!
Wrapping Up
KPIs, Best Practices, and Benchmarking can help you:
find the problems;
point the way to how to improve; and
prove your awesomeness.
Don’t be afraid to crunch the numbers!

41. Thank you! Donna Wittrock, M.A., SNS
Tatia Prieto, Ed.D., MBA, PMP