Inspectors finally find way to school cafeterias
With U.S. law in effect, and with little staff, state and counties try to make annual visits
By AMY HETZNER
of the Journal Sentinel staff
July 21, 2001
Long shielded from one of the most basic provisions of food safety laws - kitchen inspections - school cafeterias are finally supposed to be subject to annual visits, thanks to a 3-year-old law.
Quotable
You've got a vulnerable population, one of the most vulnerable populations, served in grade schools, because it's the very elderly and very young that are more likely to be sickened by a food-borne illness.
- Bill Marler, Seattle attorney who specializes in food-poisoning cases
But state and county inspectors in Wisconsin had to scramble to meet the federal law's requirement of inspections by the end of the past school year. And some doubt their ability to keep it up.
Such inspections occurred in Wisconsin schools at most only once every five years, unless the schools were catered by licensed food-service vendors, until the recent change.
When a sanitarian found paint flaking off a storage room ceiling and rodent droppings in two New Berlin elementary schools this year, it was the first time the schools had been inspected by someone from the state in at least 10 years.
Now, "we're hoping that every school that is on the school lunch program - 100 percent - should be getting (annual) inspections," said Richard Mortensen, director of the school nutrition team at the state Department of Public Instruction.
It was then-President Clinton who in 1998 signed into law the measure requiring regular inspections of all school kitchens that serve meals as part of the National School Lunch Program, which provides low-cost and nutritionally balanced meals to students.
In all, that means 2,443 public and private schools - about 96% of the nation's public schools and half of private schools - should be visited each year, Mortensen said.
The kitchen inspections are long overdue, and one of the easiest guards against food-borne illnesses, say some.
Sanitarians not only identify facility problems - such as temperatures not high enough to kill bacteria - they also can help educate and remind staff about safe practices.
"It is very important that these folks be inspected at least annually, but in a perfect world it would be even more important in schools to do more frequently," said Bill Marler, a Seattle attorney who specializes in food-poisoning cases and who recently has pushed for twice-annual school inspections in Washington state.
"You've got a vulnerable population, one of the most vulnerable populations, served in grade schools, because it's the very elderly and very young that are more likely to be sickened by a food-borne illness."
For years, the City of Milwaukee's health department has conducted annual kitchen inspections of schools, both public and private, even though it wasn't required under a state law that specifically excludes most school-based operations from food licensure. School cafeterias aren't licensed - and, therefore, haven't been inspected regularly - unless they contract for service with an outside company.
But outside Milwaukee, the federal mandate for annual inspections left county and state inspectors rushingthis spring to get to everyone during the first full year of implementation.
In Waukesha County, where the county had undertaken only the inspections of licensed facilities, county inspectors didn't discover until the investigation of an E. coli outbreak at a Waukesha elementary school that they had not been performing all of the annual inspections as were required of them.
Food service workers and kitchen practices were not blamed for the outbreak, but the school should have been receiving annual inspections as a licensed establishment and wasn't, said George Morris, environmental health manager for Waukesha County.
All Waukesha public schools as well as Arrowhead High School were inspected by the end of the school year.
"We reshuffled our staff this spring to make sure that we got to all of the schools before summer vacation," Morris said.
The state Department of Health and Family Services has been similarly taxed.
"It's an additional burden for our staff," said Tom Sieger, director of the state health department's Bureau of Environmental Health. "We're stretched very thin at the state level."
The state has been able to split about half of the inspections with county agents. Also, the state has hired "a couple of short-term or part-time people to help get the schools done," said David St. Jules, evaluation and training officer for the state health department.
Although some schools were missed in the first year, by now all of the schools should be reached annually, he said.
But in Ozaukee County, where county supervisors split over a plan last year to take over restaurant inspections from the state because of concerns about staffing levels, Supervisor Stan Kulfan doubted all school buildings could be visited annually.
Two more part-time inspectors are not enough to help cover the thousands of school buildings in the state, he said, especially in a department that he said already has stretched its annual restaurant reviews to once every 18 months.
"I would certainly think that's inadequate with the amount of school districts and school cafeterias within our southeastern region," Kulfan said.
State officials, however, say they're confident they can carry out all their school inspection duties.
Besides, they say, from what their inspections have turned up so far, school kitchens have among the best practices and cleanest facilities in the state.
In New Berlin, where an inspector found five critical problems requiring immediate attention in four facilities this spring, district officials have plans in place to fix the problems during the summer.
School officials say they would have done much of the work without the state inspection, which was the first for both schools in years.
A 1995 visit to the district hit only two of the system's nine schools - New Berlin West and Cleveland Heights - DPI records show. In 1990, Calhoun - where the flaking paint was found - was inspected; but Prospect Hill - where the mouse droppings were found - was not.
