Schools to curtail vending machines

Monday, June 17, 2002 | 11:34 a.m.

Clark County School District officials plan to limit the number of vending machines on campus not because of the junk food cutting into students' diets, but because of the high cost of electricity cutting into the district's budget.

Citing an estimated $1.4 million bill to power vending machines, school officials will limit the number of machines to one per 150 students on each campus. The district is also requiring that vending machines be turned off or limited in their use of display lighting as a way to save more money.

"When you get down to a bare-bones budget, you start looking at how the bones are put together, and how you can save even a little bit anywhere you can," Clark County Schools Superintendent Carlos Garcia said.

The school district has had to cut nearly $80 million from its $1.2 billion annual budget over the past two years, cuts officials say have been forced by reduced revenues along with increased expenses for utilities, supplies and personnel.

Barry Gunderson, who retired earlier this month after seven years as principal of Las Vegas High School, said it was unfortunate that the district was in such severe economic straits that campus vending machines had become an issue.

"How much cheaper can we do education?" Gunderson asked. "It's a terrible shame that the district has to worry about our vending machines. And it's a terrible shame that schools have to rely on that vending machine money to pay for things like paper, or repairs or after-school clubs."

Urban school districts across the country are cutting back on vending machines because of nutritional concerns. Clark County schools instead see a future in vending machines: Most of the high schools next year will have closed lunch periods meaning vending machines will play a part in feeding students.

The machines are also lucrative -- the 30 high school campuses alone make about $3,000 a month from vending machines, and in recent months, district officials wanted a share of that money.

District officials have argued for a share of the money based on the electric bill.

There was some talk of centralizing vending services, so that the district would oversee all of the contracts and distribute the profits back to the schools. But the plan was dropped after representatives from both Pepsi Cola Co. and Coca-Cola Co. said they wouldn't be able to handle one contract for all 274 district campuses, district officials said.

Individual school principals opposed the plan, saying the profits should remain in the schools without intervention from the district. Profits go for anything from after-school activities to supplies.

Garcia said he agreed that the profits should go to the schools, not the district, and that he would support centralizing vending services only if it meant more money would go to the campuses.

At the same time, Garcia said, he believed that the vending machines should "pay for themselves" and that the high electric bill was an unfair burden for the district to shoulder.

"If the schools want the machines, then they should be willing to pay to keep them turned on," Garcia said. "I don't see anything unreasonable about that."

In the 2000-01 school year, Silverado High School made $124,000 in vending profits, said Richard Ennes, business manager of the district's operations unit.

A survey of just 20 high schools for the same year showed vending profits of $789,000. Numbers for the total district were unavailable, district officials said.

Under the plan that starts in August, the district is requiring vending companies to disconnect the machine display lights and install timers and motion detectors, said Dale Scott, energy manager for the district's facilities division.

By disconnecting the display lights, the district will save $139.80 a year on each machine, officials say.

"If we can save just a little on the cost of powering each one, it can really add up," Scott said.

It costs about $30 a month to keep each refrigerated machine cooled, Scott said.

The actual cost of powering a vending machine varies from model to model, said Rocky Brandonisio, president of Horizon Vending Service of Las Vegas. Machines that don't need to be refrigerated cost less than a machine with frozen foods or dairy items, said Brandonisio, who services several hundred machines for the district.

It's impossible to know whether the school district's estimate of a $1.4 million power bill for campus vending is accurate without checking each machine individually, Brandonisio said. He said the estimate of $30 a month per machine may be high.

At least two high schools had already taken voluntary measures to cut down on the electricity used for the machines. Bonanza High School has timers on its machines, and Green Valley High School turns off most machines at night.

Most elementary schools have just one or two machines, usually in teacher lounges, Scott said. But many of the middle school and high school campuses have dozens, Scott said. Chaparral High School -- with an enrollment this past year of just over 2,728 -- has 48 machines, or one for every 56 students.

It was immediately unclear how this would affect schools, but district officials said some schools would be forced to remove machines.

Terri Janison, a member of the Nevada Coalition for Healthy Children, said she was glad to hear the vending machines would be limited in the fall, even if the motivation was based on financial, rather than than nutritional, concerns.

"We'll take the reduction any way we can get it," Janison said. "I understand the schools need the income, but the health and safety of the students has to come first."

The new limit on vending machines is just one element of a master plan aimed at reducing school utility costs, Scott said.

District custodians have been shutting down all 172 of the nine-month schools for the summer -- a move that is expected to trim $1.7 million off the utility bills. That's the same amount district officials hoped to save by cutting back on high school transportation services and eliminating middle school athletics.

At some schools administrators will work through the end of the month, but they have been instructed to vacate the campus for all of July, Scott said. Teachers have been told to take home plants and classroom animals, and cafeteria workers have consolidated supplies so that unused freezers and refrigerators can be turned off, Scott said.