What should be a standard procedure bid has bred uncertainty and fear as lunch ladies face the prospect of losing jobs, pensions and an important link in the community.

East Penn School District processes bids for its food management every year, as required by state law, even though they have maintained a rolling five-year contract with The Nutrition Group since 1998. The Nutrition Group operates strictly in a managerial capacity, however, and the 65 food crafters seen every day at lunch by thousands of students are employees of the school district, not the Nutrition Group.

The bid is standard procedure, but this year's contents are not. Rather than bids indicating a managerial role as usual, the district opened up this year's bid to include outsourcing the entire lunch operation. Should this happen, district employees would in effect lose their jobs with only the hope of finding a comparable position with the winner of the bid. All pension contributions would cease entirely.

Tina Mondovich, president of the ladies' Pennsylvania State Educators Association bargaining unit, has worked with the district for 11 years, including stints at Lower Macungie Middle School and Emmaus High School. Never in all that time has she seen a request from the district to include bids for outsourcing the entire food operation. Nor, she said, had anyone working with her heard of that happening in the past.

A school district employee is automatically enrolled in the Public Schools Employees Retirement System, according to Mondovich, who says all 65 lunch ladies are paying into their pensions. If the district awards the bid to an outside company, all 65 will see a pension freeze. The money already paid in will not be available until the employee retires and early withdrawals can result in penalties. Mondovich says at least two she knows of are preparing for retirement in a year or two. But it will affect everyone.

"While the district has indicated to the bidding companies they do not want to see a reduction in staff, we have no control over whether or not the successful company would hire any of us, or at what salary or level of benefits," PSEA secretary Karen Haldeman said.

School board president Charles Ballard was unable to elaborate on details of the bids, which were just opened Feb. 11 and reported at the following school board meeting.

"We have a long way to go," Ballard said. "It could be a year before everything is put together."

If the district employees are concerned about losing their pensions for the remainder of their careers, they are equally concerned with the potential effect on the community. East Penn is comprised of some 8,000 students in 10 schools. Many of them know their lunch ladies on a personal basis.

Mondovich is one of many with extended family attending schools in East Penn. In an email, Mondovich said, "The vast majority of us live in the district; many of us have children and grandchildren who attend or have attended East Penn. We take very seriously our role of planning and preparing nutritious meals for the children of the East Penn School District."

"If you're outsourced you bring in people that don't know a lot of the kids," Mondovich said. "[People say,] I'm so glad I know someone who's in there and they're keeping an eye on my kid and making sure they're eating right. When you bring someone in that doesn't know the kids I don't think you have that camaraderie."

Meetings will be scheduled to discuss the change, but at this point the union members are just waiting for decisions to come down from the district. The school district has opened bids from The Nutrition Group and Aramark, but there is no time limit and they can take as long as they like with their decision.

"We're discussing what to do, what not to do," Mondovich said.

In the meantime, they wait.

Union representative Mark Lynn said the lunch ladies have a certain legal option to secure their position. Once a company submits a bid promising a savings of so many dollars, the lunch ladies have the right to match the bid and the district must keep them on as employees. But, Lynn says, "It would be a salary reduction," meaning their pay would be the greatest factor affected by matching a low bid.

"It really is problematic," Lynn said. "A lot of them have second jobs; this is not a career that they can have a living out of it." The majority of lunch ladies are part time, and therefore few of them receive health care benefits.

And though the district has requested the number of staff not be lowered by the winning bid, Lynn said whomever wins has no legal obligation to retain any employees for any amount of time, even if they hire every one of the 65 current employees.

"This is a proud group of ladies," Lynn said. "They take a great deal of pride in their work and in taking care of these kids."

The PSERS active member handbook describes the employee pension system. An account is created for every public school employee but not all employees qualify for membership. Full-time employees are members but part timers must meet certain qualifications, including having worked a minimum of 500 hours in a school year, along with other stipulations.