Lawmakers demand an end to 'sham' transaction fees that are adding to the cost of school lunches
A group of senators has demanded that U.S. officials prohibit transaction fees on school meal accounts.
A group of senators has demanded that U.S. officials prohibit transaction fees on school meal accounts, arguing that the companies that process students’ lunch payments are unnecessarily raising costs for families.
In a letter to Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack sent Wednesday evening, Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., and seven other senators urged immediate action from the Agriculture Department, which administers the program that serves billions of meals to students nationally each year.
While the meals are low-cost (or free in some cases), families are often hit with “exorbitant” fees from private payment processors when they deposit money into their children’s accounts, the letter said.
“Every day, greedy payment processing companies are ripping off working families, snatching dollars meant to pay for kids’ school lunches in order to pad their profits,” read the letter, which was shared first with NBC News. “It is unacceptable that parents face exorbitant fees just so their children can eat school lunch, and USDA should prohibit these sham fees.”
The letter, signed by seven Democratic senators and independent Sen. Bernie Sanders, of Vermont, comes two months after a report on school meal payment processors from the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, a government agency that works to ensure fairness in the marketplace. The report found that the companies collect more than $100 million in transaction fees a year.
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