At least there aren’t overdraft fees.

Old Rochester Regional Junior and High School students have accrued more than $1,000 in lunch account overdrafts, according Food Service Director Caitlin Meagher.

Meagher reported her findings from the Nutrikids program to the Old Rochester Regional School Committee on Nov. 9

Nutrikids allows students and their parents to create an online account from which lunch payments are drawn. The money is placed in the account and the student is given a personal identification number to access that account when they are paying for lunch.

The benefits of the program are the reports it can generate regarding how much money the schools are spending on lunches and which lunches are more popular.

The problem now is that students are charging more than they have available.

According to Meagher and Katie Isernio, the school district business administrator, letters have been mailed to the families that owe money.

“This is a flip side to Nutrikids that we really didn’t anticipate,” Isernio said. “We need to get the letters sent out in order to say to the families that this is not a credit card system. We have to answer to that debt.”

To address the problem, Meagher and Isernio introduced a new procedure which, if the students have more than three overdrafts then they will not be allowed to charge a regular lunch to their account. The student will only be able to receive either a peanut butter, or a cheese sandwich and milk for 50 cents.

Both Meagher and Isernio stressed the importance of not denying any student a lunch but, Meagher said, they do not want the debt to rise any further.

High school principal Michael Devoll said he will be holding meetings with the students who owe money, as well as contacting the families. Previously, the school had been giving all the mail directly to the students instead of sending to their homes. This was done, Isernio said, to cut down on cost of the mail, but she added this may mean the students have forgotten to keep their parents informed.

“Some kids can’t cover the debt,” Devoll said. “But I think we are going to see a lot of checks coming in. Given the choice between pizza and a cheese sandwich I think they are going to take care of it.  These kids don’t want to eat a cheese sandwich everyday.”

Devoll added this is an issue that needs to be addressed not just in terms of the debt but also because of the financial difficulties families may be having which prevents them from maintaining the account.

Isernio said that the school is seeing more applications for free and reduced lunch every week and that they encourage families who qualify to fill out the application.

Another option, Meagher said, is to set up an email alert with a Nutrikids account, which would send the parents a reminder email that their account is low in funds.