The federal government has agreed to forgive more than $5 million in debt being assessed on 40 Missouri school districts, including Scott City, U.S. Sen. Jim Talent, R-Missouri, said Wednesday.
The Scott City School District's debt amounted to $104,457, Talent said in a news release.
Scott City superintendent Diann Bradshaw-Ulmer welcomed the decision of the U.S. Department of Agriculture regarding food-service accounts. But she said it wasn't traditional debt but rather reflected an issue of accounting.
The district didn't owe money to the USDA, she said.
The problem, Talent said, resulted from an accounting disagreement between the USDA and the Missouri Department of Elementary and Secondary Education involving the way food service contractors handled commodity foods in the bidding process from 1997 to 2002.