The West Aurora School District board is looking to make a decision soon on the district’s next food service contract.
The board is set to consider a vote on a food service management company at its next meeting on June 17.
The 2023-24 school year was the final year of a contract with Chicago-based Organic Life, the district’s current food service management company, district officials said.
The board in 2019 voted unanimously to award a $3.6 million food services contract to Organic Life.
The district issued a call to prospective vendors in early April, and received three bids, West Aurora School District Assistant Superintendent of Operations Angie Smith said.
The bids were favorable, Smith said at the June 3 school board meeting.
“We are happy to report that we saw very sharp pencils and very tight results,” Smith said.
The district initially submitted the Request for Proposal to the Illinois State Board of Education for approval in March and a pre-proposal meeting and site visit with vendors was held in mid-April, according to a timeline developed by West Aurora School District Director of Finance Ryan Abrahamson.
“When we did this five years ago, we had to go through a formal bid process,” Abrahamson said.
The state changed the process about two years ago to permit public schools to issue a Request for Proposal rather than go through the bid process, he said.
“It makes it more customizable for our district. Previously, we had to go with the lowest-priced vendor. This gives us flexibility,” he said.
“Ryan did a ton of work on this,” Smith said of the food service vendor process.
Some of the neighboring school districts sent Request for Proposals to the state for approval only to get them back for corrections, Smith said.
“We didn’t have that happen because Ryan did it great the first time,” Smith said.
Linda Girardi is a freelance reporter for The Beacon-News.