WESTBROOK – The Westbrook School Committee has voted to raise prices for school lunches starting in the fall by 10 cents – but it could have been a lot worse.

The committee nearly voted to increases prices by up to 80 cents at its April 20 meeting, but minutes before the vote, that move was tabled to the May 11 meeting, when the committee elected instead to raise prices by only 10 cents.

“Ten cents is certainly a lot better than 80,” said School Committee member Alex Stone after the May 11 meeting.

The increase is mandated by the federal government through the 2010 Healthy, Hunger-Free Kids Act. The act relates to government subsidies, issued to all school districts nationwide, to pay for free and reduced-price lunches for kids in qualifying families. According to Interim School Superintendent Marc Gousse, approximately 55 percent of the students throughout the district, or some 1,400 students, participate in the program.

The act sets a standard price per meal for free and reduced-price lunches that must be matched by the district’s prices for ordinary lunches. That means, according to Food Services Director Jeanne Reilly, the district will eventually have to charge $2.46 per meal, as dictated by the current act, which is renewed every few years. Now, she said, the district charges $1.70 per meal for K-8, and $1.90 per meal at the high school.

The confusion came over how long the district had to make up the difference. Reilly, Gousse, School Committee Chairman Ed Symbol and other committee members all said letters from the federal government on the subject received prior to April 20 suggested that the district had to make up the difference immediately.

“That is the part that (we know) is now not correct,” Symbol said.

If the district didn’t raise prices up to $2.46 starting in 2012, Symbol said, the correspondence from the government initially led them to believe that the government would simply take money out of the district’s general fund to cover the difference, which would force taxpayers to shoulder the burden.

Inquiries to the federal government by the American Journal led to correspondence between the government and the district, clarifying the requirements. Ken Sierra, a spokesman for the northeast region of the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s food nutrition service, confirmed this week that the district is free to raise it incrementally over a period of several years.

“That way, the increase is gradual, and not a big increase all of a sudden,” he said.

On May 11, Reilly told the committee that the absolute minimum increase would have to be 5 cents, and recommended 10 cents. School Committee member James Violette made a motion to increase it by 15 cents.

“My thought is, 15 cents would get us there a year quicker,” he said.

But the committee amended the motion to 10 cents, then passed it by a vote of 5-2, with Violette and committee member Suzanne Salisbury voting against.

The committee will have to vote again next year on raising prices an additional amount, until the $2.46 level is reached, according to Reilly.

“As long as we’re making a good-faith effort to get to that bar, we won’t be penalized,” she said.