Student thefts cost school thousands
Andrew Overton and Chris Hall
Issue date: 5/3/07 Section: News
An extra banana here. A fork and knife there.
There is a significant loss of either food or silverware every day at the cafeteria, according to dining officials. This loss results in thousands upon thousands of dollars lost.
"This year alone, I'll spend $60,000 in china," Charlie Soechtig, the Resident Manager at the dining hall, said. "That's just flatware, plates, cups, bowls physically lost. It's unbreakable stuff; it doesn't get lost to breakage, it gets lost to waste."
"There could be a portion that is thrown out," added Mike Pickett, the Guest Services Manager.
"When we used to have the garbage cans where people were scraping we found plates and bowls in the waste basket," Pickett said.
But the major cause of loss for the dining hall is the students who are walking out with food as well as plates, bowls and silverware as they return to their rooms.
The dining hall serves close to 500,000 meals a year and a percentage of those meals someone takes something out of the dining hall, which is not included in the meal plan.
"I would say three percent of sales is lost to people walking out with food from the dining hall to consume at other times, a piece of fruit, a bagel, a sandwich, I've seen loafs of bread, dozens of china in the backpack," said Soechtig.
"It ultimately raises the price of the meal plan, the parents get upset. 'Why is it going up?' So we try and control it somehow," Pickett said.
The steps that the dining hall administration has taken have included portion controls to limit the number of portions one student can take at a time, but that does not mean that the dining hall is not allowing students to eat as much as they want. The management just wants to cut down on the waste that is created by students taking too many portions and throwing out the uneaten leftovers.
"There is a huge amount of waste, you look at the thousands and thousands of meals we serve out of here a year, if you put 3% of that, it is a huge number of people that we could be feeding, whether it be The Lunchbox Program here in Poughkeepsie, savings in dollar amounts or feeding the needy," Soechtig said. "It's a huge amount of food that could be going to another source."
There is a significant loss of either food or silverware every day at the cafeteria, according to dining officials. This loss results in thousands upon thousands of dollars lost.
"This year alone, I'll spend $60,000 in china," Charlie Soechtig, the Resident Manager at the dining hall, said. "That's just flatware, plates, cups, bowls physically lost. It's unbreakable stuff; it doesn't get lost to breakage, it gets lost to waste."
"There could be a portion that is thrown out," added Mike Pickett, the Guest Services Manager.
"When we used to have the garbage cans where people were scraping we found plates and bowls in the waste basket," Pickett said.
But the major cause of loss for the dining hall is the students who are walking out with food as well as plates, bowls and silverware as they return to their rooms.
The dining hall serves close to 500,000 meals a year and a percentage of those meals someone takes something out of the dining hall, which is not included in the meal plan.
"I would say three percent of sales is lost to people walking out with food from the dining hall to consume at other times, a piece of fruit, a bagel, a sandwich, I've seen loafs of bread, dozens of china in the backpack," said Soechtig.
"It ultimately raises the price of the meal plan, the parents get upset. 'Why is it going up?' So we try and control it somehow," Pickett said.
The steps that the dining hall administration has taken have included portion controls to limit the number of portions one student can take at a time, but that does not mean that the dining hall is not allowing students to eat as much as they want. The management just wants to cut down on the waste that is created by students taking too many portions and throwing out the uneaten leftovers.
"There is a huge amount of waste, you look at the thousands and thousands of meals we serve out of here a year, if you put 3% of that, it is a huge number of people that we could be feeding, whether it be The Lunchbox Program here in Poughkeepsie, savings in dollar amounts or feeding the needy," Soechtig said. "It's a huge amount of food that could be going to another source."
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