With a 25-cent increase in lunch prices, careful food ordering and better management, Marion’s Sippican School is seeing positive numbers in its budget going into the new school year.

Old Rochester Regional School District Food Service Director Caitlin Meagher was on-hand for the first Marion School Committee meeting of this school year on August 22. Meagher reported that the elementary school closed out last year with a surplus of $108 left in the food service account.

In 2011, the school finished the year with a $21,000 deficit.

Meagher said there were three key factors that played into the school’s savings, including the committee’s decision to approve a 25-cent increase in the lunch prices last year to account for an increase in food service costs.

If the price of lunch had not increased from $2.25 to $2.50, Meagher said that the school would have lost $8,000 last year.

Meagher said that the school officials also spent $10,000 less by ordering food more practically than before.

“We tried very hard to purchase only what was needed,” Meagher said. “Last year we had a lot of surplus food lying around.”

Meagher has also been busy reorganizing the menus in the cafeterias to adhere to new state regulations for student health.

“We’re looking at new menu items,” she said. “It’s going to be much less on the snack side and better things on the meal side.”

Superintendent Doug White commended the Meagher for her management of all of the school cafeterias in the ORR district.

“The state laws have changed and there’s new training,” White said. “She has been working hard trying to get the nutritional value up and get structure in the schools.”