This story also raises other problems:
If the defaulting parents’ bills are paid by a third party, then the parents who did pay will likely feel aggrieved.
The parents who have their bills paid will quite possibly carry on not paying in the hope/expectation that they will be bailed out again.
That aside, the idea that anyone living in a civilised society could have their children dragged screaming from their homes and put into foster care to enforce a debt seems ludicrous to me.
Yes. Businesses are absolutely able to demand that the customer who incurred the debt is the entity that pays the debt. In many cases, businesses are legally obligated to do so by laws and regulations designed to prevent money laundering.
It shouldn’t be an accounting issue. Theoretically, it could be a systems/processing issue. To build on UltraVires example, suppose the school specified in the agreement for billing school lunches that there must be a single payment per lunch bill. However, some parent of two kids decides to send in a single cheque for both kids’ bills. If the school has a system that isn’t capable of splitting payments, they aren’t able to process the payment against both kids’ debts. That cheque isn’t meeting the agreed terms for payment and the school would have the right to refuse it. Similarly, the school in the OP would have the right to demand the businessman donating the payment specify every debt he was paying.
Having said that, it’s much more likely that whoever was refusing the donated payment was taking some kind of moral (for lack of a better word) stance than there was any systems/processing issue.
And… how would that be different than the bookkeeping that would be required when all of those families pay their individual debts? The employees would STILL have to go through all the school lunch accounts, find the specific one being paid, and then process the payment.
No, the purpose of the whole mess is to cause shame to the poor and make sure they know they’re lesser creatures. If the concern really was to take care of the debt the school district would have taken the CEO’s offer.
Yes, you will always have a certain amount of “game the system” or “fraud” or whatever else you care to point out. ALWAYS. That’s reality.
Are you going to throw out the benefit for the vast majority who actually need the benefit because a small minority are cheating?
That would be more believable if:
A)The school accepted the check and this complaint came from parents who said their accounts hadn’t been credited yet. It’s one thing to say ‘we have the money, we just have to figure out how to properly apply donated money to student accounts’ as opposed to ‘no thanks, we’ll take a pass’.
and
B)According to the person donating the money, the school board president stated that he was working under the assumption that the parents had the money, they just wanted free food. That’s someone out of touch with reality. That’s ‘how much could a banana possibly cost, ten dollars?’ type thinking.
From his point of view, it shouldn’t matter where the money comes from. That fact that he refused to take it, while at the same time telling parents he was going to take their children away tells me he didn’t want the money, he wanted to punish parents.
And, regarding the comment up thread about it being too much work, that doesn’t hold water. No matter how much work it would be, it would be the same amount to collect from each parent and couldn’t possibly be more work than placing parents in collections, kids in foster care and trying to get liens on houses. I have to assume the school’s lawyer fees would be well beyond anything they’d collect after a mess like that.
I get where this guy is coming from. The idea being that, at least some of, the parents were withholding payment as a protest, not out of need. They were protesting the fact that other schools in the system went to full free lunch, either to protest the very concept, or to protest that those schools got it and theirs didn’t.
If this is the case, and I believe it to be a reasonable scenario, I understand the position of not wanting to reward parents who were acting like petulant children.
That’s probably true, but that’s always going to be the case, always. There will always be people who want, or feel they deserve, something for nothing. But the school board shouldn’t be the one deciding who does or does not fit that description (even if it seems super duper obvious). And, even if someone came right out and stated they could comfortably afford to pay that $25, but aren’t going to, trying to get their house taken away or their kids put in foster care is a bit extreme.
In this day and age, I’m always amazed when someone doesn’t something like this. Maybe some of these people need a bit of training to explain that when you do something spectacularly unfair, it can become global news in a matter of hours. Gone is the time when you could punish a kid simply because you had the power to do so.
If that’s the case, perhaps once the school board explains to the parents why their school didn’t get across-the-board free lunches while another school did, the parents will stop protesting.
Not sure how it works in the USA legal system, but my understanding in Canada is if the creditor refuses a reasonable legitimate good faith attempt to pay a debt (or a part) then the debt is no longer enforceable. By that logic, if this had happened in Canada, I assume the school board would no longer be able to enforce the debt - depending on the fine print of what constitutes an offer to pay, etc.
But of course there’s the same question as above - so the debt is paid by a third party - what about next month? the rest of the year? Plus if Bob sees Fred’s kid getting free food, why would he be incentivized to pay?
Presumably this is happening now (or recently) so it’s probably about debt for the previous year. In any case, we’ve talked about that type of issue here. What it comes down to is that just because someone gets something for free, doesn’t mean you should also get that thing for free. If Bill Gates pays off all the student debt for everyone at a school, it doesn’t mean you should get to go there for free.
I understand what you’re saying, but unfortunately, if the parents of the next set of kids skips out on paying in hopes of someone swooping in and covering it, that’s going to be their fault. But we’re talking about an average of $75 over (I assume) the course of a school year. If you can afford to pay that, it you probably won’t risk collections over it.
I just skimmed another article and the reason the school gave for calling CPS was “This is a failure to provide your child with proper nutrition and you can be sent to Dependency Court for neglecting your child’s right to food”
ISTM, no matter how you twist the argument about what should happen to a student if his lunch account is in arrears, it’s still the school that had the ability to feed the kid and chose not to, and then is attempting to have the kids removed from the house over it.
I have to assume if there isn’t an good amount of admin turnover in the next few months, they’ll have a lot less students next year (assuming there’s other places for the kids to go).
This sounds a lot like the debate surrounding the wealthy donor that agreed to pay off the student loan debt of graduating students at a particular school. Those students that paid for the tuition without incurring debt, may have been aggrieved of not having their tuition paid for. Of course the board consensus on that issue was that the people that didn’t incur loan debt, should not be aggrieved.
Well, if the kid got food and didn’t pay for it, it hardly seems they went without proper nutrition. Maybe if they are ineligible for food next year the board might have a case… in September. But they’d have to show the kids brought to school an inadequate lunch (or none) - consistently. I’d be very worried about a CPS that needed to remove kids over missing one or two lunches. I’d also be very worried about a school that sees a need to be nutrition police about lunches brought from home.
There’s a parable somewhere about pay rates and hours of work and grumbling workers.
CNN article I just skimmed said that all outstanding balances will be paid and all meals for the next 5 years would be free for all - I think that takes care of this.
Maybe he’s planning to run for office. There’s apparently a large voter base who’s thrilled to see economically vulnerable people demonized and punished.
I highly recommend everyone as many news articles as possible, especially the root article, before posting.
Linked from the CNN article linked above, this article https://wnep.com/2019/07/16/pay-your-lunch-money-or-face-foster-care/ seems to be the original report.
Note that the President of the School Board didn’t write the letter. Rough 1,000 students were in arrears and there were numerous attempts at collection before the letter was sent.
"“I think the person that wrote that letter should think about having their children away from him and put into a foster home,” Jack Coslett said.
The man who wrote that letter, director of federal programs Joseph Muth, says Wyoming Valley West is owed more than $22,000 by roughly 1,000 students. Four accounts show parents owe more than $450 each.
Muth says this letter was a last resort and that all parents who received it were contracted numerous times, by phone, email, and other letters."
And the free lunches now offered are unrelated to this incident.
“Beginning this fall, Wyoming Valley West students will get free meals because the district now qualifies under federal guidelines.”
Despite what many people think, governmental changes, especially when State and Federal guidelines need to be held to, takes time.
I think I was the only person to bring up anything about the school board. Because the president of the school board declined the offer by the 3rd party to pay all the outstanding balances and the president of the school board declined it because he assumes the parents have the money and are simply choosing not to pay.
I would think threatening collections would be the last resort. Maybe not letting the kids re-enroll (I have no idea how that would work) would be a last resort. Threatening to have the children removed from their houses is pretty awful…over less than a hundred dollars.
I’ve always felt that one’s answer to this question is a good indicator of one’s political party…
Here’s the actual law: “United States coins and currency (including Federal reserve notes and circulating notes of Federal reserve banks and national banks) are legal tender for all debts, public charges, taxes, and dues.” 31 U.S.C. § 5103.
A valid tender that is not accepted does not discharge the debt, but does have the effect of discharging the debtor from liability for what might be called accessorial or incidental obligations, such as interest and other costs, that are related to the principal obligation. 28 Williston on Contracts § 72:45.