When Austin Public Schools students don’t have enough money in their lunch accounts, cashiers often let teachers know the morning before school, so students will know if they need to grab an alternate lunch.

Students can have about three hot lunches if their account has a negative balance before they have to take a separate lunch consisting of either a cheese or a peanut butter sandwich and milk.

More often than not, Austin food and nutrition workers try to prevent that.

“You never, ever want to pull a tray and you never ever want to give an alternate meal, if possible, but we are also held accountable to our budget,” said Mary Weikum, Food and Nutrition director.

Budget issues and state regulations have put Minnesota school lunch policy, and school lunches nationwide, into the spotlight after a Utah school took away more than 30 lunches from students in one lunch period several weeks ago.

About 62,000 low-income children and teens take part in Minnesota’s reduced-price lunch program. That should mean that for 40 cents, they get a hot, nutritious lunch, with the remainder of the cost covered by public funds. But if students fail to come up with even 40 cents, some schools respond by denying or downgrading students’ lunches, as Mid-Minnesota Legal Aid discovered when it surveyed 309 public school districts.

In a survey released Monday, 46 Minnesota school districts told Legal Aid that they immediately or eventually refuse to feed students who have insufficient funds in their lunch accounts. More than half the districts in the state — 166 of them, Austin included — provide an alternative meal, typically a cold cheese sandwich, once the money runs out. Another 96 school districts, including the Minneapolis public schools, provide a hot lunch regardless of a child’s ability to pay.

In Austin, the issue affects less than 500 students. Though more than half of the district’s overall student population — about 4,600 students — qualify for free and reduced lunch, the majority of those students qualify for free lunches.

Weikum said the district usually has plans in place for students. Aside from notifying elementary school teachers before school, food and nutrition cashiers will also send notes home to parents or call and work out payment plans for students. For students who get lunch free, as long as their families fill out the proper paperwork, they’ll be allowed to have lunch regardless. Otherwise, students must pay any negative balance they owe to food and nutrition before they graduate from high school.

“Once they go free, we do not hold that negative balance against them,” Weikum said.

Food and nutrition workers also have to adhere to the district’s budget, especially since recent federal laws mandated healthier, and therefore more expensive, food in cafeterias.

While Weikum and other employees are happy to offer healthier food, other regulations can get in the way. One of the most common solutions to school lunch issues Weikum has heard is moving cash registers to the front of the lunch line. That isn’t possible under state policy.

“The point of sale must be at the end of line, that is in our regulations,” Weikum said.

Minnesota Education Commissioner Brenda Cassellius on Monday called the report “troubling,” and fired off a letter to district superintendents.

“Like me, I know that none of you would deny a child a nutritious lunch intentionally,” she wrote. “I am hoping you will speak with your food service directors regarding this information and find ways to ensure children are never turned away from receiving a hot meal.”

Gov. Mark Dayton recently announced his support of a $3.5 million fund in his supplemental budget request this legislative session to expand the state’s free and reduced lunch program to include all students. Legislative leaders, who return to session at the end of the month, have similarly vowed to make lunch funding a priority.

For Weikum, the increased political action is a little surprising but she welcomes any discussion on better ways to feed students.

“We all want kids to eat too,” she said. “It’s the most hated part of our job when kids don’t have money in their account Many, many many of us have put money in kids’ account so they can eat.”

—MCT Information Services contributed to this report.