Where Did Extended Benefits Go?

Meals Plus recently removed the Extended Benefits application check box and Extended Benefits report from our Free & Reduced software, triggering many questions from our customers as to how they would now identify students who do not have a case number, or are not directly certified, but on the same application and receiving free meals.

Technically, what was referred to as Extended Benefits did not exist during the 2015-16 fiscal year. The July, 2015 edition of the Eligibility Manual for School Meals states that categorical eligibility and free benefits for all children in the household is given to every member of the household when SNAP, TANF, or FDPIR case numbers or identifiers are provided, either for a child or for any household member.

These changes were also reflected in the Application for Free and Reduced Price School Meals, which now only includes a household case number (starting the 2015-2016 fiscal year). Case numbers are no longer assigned to an individual on an application.

As a result, benefits are no longer “extended” based on any one individual’s eligibility status. The Free & Reduced software applies the case number from the application to all students on the application.

We did not remove the designation until the end of this fiscal year so that reports could be run for students carried over from the previous year who were marked with the Extended Benefit designation in Meals Plus. Should you require the data as part of an audit, running the Master Roster by case number will show you those who were extended benefits as the result of another member being directly certified (case type “DC-EXT”) or another member having a case type on the application (case type “EB”). You can also run a Case Type Report for case type “ALL” and see the same results.