Public school students may have to shell out $2.20 for a hot lunch beginning in January under a proposal currently making its way through the state Board of Education.

Superintendent Pat Hamamoto recommend an increase in school lunch prices from $1.25 to $2.20 at a meeting of the board's Administrative Services Committee yesterday.

Similarly, Hamamoto also recommended an increase in full-priced breakfast from 35 cents to 95 cents.

The proposal comes as a new law — known as Act 26 — is set to take effect July 1 and follows a year in which the Department of Education's budget for food surged nearly 15 percent. The new law allows the DOE to charge more than half of the cost of preparation of a meal.

While eight of 10 board members yesterday voted to support Hamamoto's proposal, two board members expressed reservations with increasing lunch prices at a time when families are experiencing financial hardship.

"This is quite a jump for parents," said Karen Knudsen, vice chairwoman of the Board of Education.

Knudsen questioned estimates by education officials that it costs some $4.40 to produce an individual lunch.

"I'm having a hard time reconciling that the actual cost is $4.40 when you have that many students and those little portions," she said.

The school lunch program loses about $6 million a year, said Glenna Owens, director of school food services.

Owens was unable to specify exactly how much additional revenue the DOE expects through the price increases, but said it will at least help reduce the lunch program deficit.

The DOE spent about $27 million for food on school campuses last year, which increased to $31 million this year, according to the DOE. That's a nearly 15 percent increase. The total cost of food service — including the food, the preparing and serving — is about $90 million a year.

In the 2007-08 school year, $15 million was raised through lunch fees, while $35 million was contributed by the state and $36 million by federal reimbursements under the U.S. Department of Agriculture's National School Lunch Program.

Board member John Penebacker, who voted against the meal price increase, grilled education officials over why they actively lobbied the Legislature to pass a bill to raise lunch prices, knowing that parents are losing their jobs or making less money.

"This is going to have a tremendous impact on families," Penebacker said. "Was there any consideration by the department in regards to its testimony to alert the Legislature about the financial impact it will have on some of the struggling families in our schools?"

Owens said families who are struggling can still get free or reduced-price meals so long as they qualify for the National School Lunch Program, the federally assisted meal program. About 70,000 students receive free and reduced-price lunches through the program each year.

Currently, students who qualify for reduced-price meals pay 20 cents for both breakfast and lunch, which has not changed since 1981.

That will increase to 30 cents for breakfast and 40 cents for lunch.

Nationally, the U.S. Department of Agriculture is silent on how much school districts can charge for meals. It does, however, outline the maximum that states can charge students from low-income families who qualify for reduced-price lunches.

According to the USDA, school districts can only charge 40 cents for a lunch and 30 cents for a breakfast if a student qualifies for reduced prices.