In this section, we will discuss how meal reimbursement is calculated and some of the requirements surrounding submission of your claims for reimbursement.
Meals are reimbursed based on a standard rate per meal served, not the actual cost of preparing and serving the meals. Since there is not funding provided separately to cover administrative costs sponsors must cover those costs within the reimbursement provided or through other non-program funding sources. The per meal reimbursement rates are updated each year in July or shortly thereafter and our office will send you the new rates when they’re released at the federal level. This chart shows the reimbursement rates by benefit category and meal for the 19/20 year. Typically, these rates have a modest rate of increase, a couple of cents each year. All lunches and suppers claimed will also earn an additional amount of money in the form of Cash-in-Lieu of commodities.
Sponsors will enter the number of meals they served for each individual site into CNPweb. The system will automatically roll all of these meals up into a sponsor claim that you will review, certify, and submit for approval. There are some application information items that if outdated or incorrectly completed will result in a claim error and prevent the submission of a claim. Some common errors are that the sponsor Department of Commerce data has expired on the Sponsor information sheet, the site licensing or license exemption expiration data has passed, or the month you are trying to enter a site claim for is not showing up because you failed to check that month as an operating month on the site information sheet. It is very important to keep you program information up to date and accurate to avoid these types of errors. Our system has some error messages that will assist you in correcting identified issues. You can always contact our office for assistance if you encounter issues completing your claim.
Sponsors will be able to enter their claims on the first day of each month. For prompt payment, claims must be certified and submitted in the “approved” status by the fifth working day of each month. Sponsors have no more than 60-days from the end of the claim month to submit their claim for reimbursement. After that time, they will be unable to claim those meals. Sponsors are allowed a one time exception every three years to this rule, however they must submit a corrective action plan to the state agency along with their exception request explaining how they will prevent a late claim submission in the future.
A sponsor may also request an exception which would allow them to submit a late claim based on “circumstances beyond their control.” These must be extraordinary circumstances such a fire, flood, power outages, etc., that due to no fault of your own resulted in your inability to file your claim on time. If granted you would be able to submit a late claim without using your one-time exception.
Once a sponsor submits a claim, they are allowed to make revisions and adjustments as necessary after the claim has been processed. However, any upward adjustments, those revisions resulting in the sponsor receiving more funding than they received based on their first submission, must be made within the original 60-day period. The need to do so should be rare. However, downward revisions where the sponsor has identified they received too much funding on their original request can be made at any time. Basically, we are always able to take money back, but limited on paying more money out. If the sponsor has a reliable counting and claiming system in place, adjustment up or down from your original claim should rarely happen.
The number one issue with claims is that sponsors forget to check the certification box that appears at the bottom of the claim. This results in their claim not being processed. When properly submitted, reimbursed funds are typically received by sponsors, by the end of the month. Information regarding claiming rules and reimbursement rates can be found on the State Agency website, Child and Adult Care Food Program, Reimbursement Rates Tab.
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