The Hawaiʻi Department of Education’s decision to grant millions of dollars worth of no-bid contracts to technology companies in recent years put more than $33 million in federal funding for school meals at risk and set back efforts to track food costs.
The education department, which is now starting to receive the funds, broke numerous procurement rules, according to a recent report from Hawaiʻi Child Nutrition Programs, including hiring three companies without soliciting competing bids. One of those companies received nearly $4 million to roll out a software program and provide training that the nutrition agency determined was duplicative and which some cafeteria managers refused to use.
As a result, Hawaiʻi Child Nutrition Programs — an agency within the education department that oversees state compliance with federal regulations — temporarily withheld roughly half a year’s worth of federal funding for school meals in 2024 and 2025. And efforts to track and control the school system’s food spending were significantly set back: Cafeteria managers had to return to using handwritten index cards and ledgers to track food purchases…