Last update - 00:00 17/10/2006
Agreement will allow school lunch program to resume Wednesday
By Yulie Khromchenko, Haaretz Correspondent
The school lunch program will begin Wednesday, two days later than scheduled.
Municipalities will agree to run the program due to the Knesset Education and Culture Committee's decision to alter the municipalities' and parentss shares in funding lunches meals.
About 130,000 first-grade to sixth-grade children are slated to receive meals under the program.
The proposal, presented by Education Minister Yuli Tamir, reduces the monetary burden on parents with the lowest incomes and increases the price high-income parents will have to pay for meals to NIS 4.5.
Additionally, the proposal slightly reduces the municipalities' share in funding meals.
Eight members of the Knesset committee voted in favor of the proposal while five abstained from the vote.
The lunch program did not operate Monday and Tuesday, and the Yedid foundation threatened that if meal distribution were not resumed, it would petition to the High Court of Justice.
The Union of Local Authorities had maintained that the previous budget suggested for the program cast a financial burden on the municipalities estimated at NIS 20 million. Local authorities said they did not have sufficient funding for the program.
The settlement, which decreases the burden on some municipalities by 10 percent, was reached in a meeting between Tamir and Director General of the Union of Local Authorities Adi Eldar.
Education and Culture Committee chair Michael Melchior (Labor) castigated the Education Ministry for its behavior, which he claimed delayed proposal's submission, thus delaying the onset of the lunch program.