ASHLAND, Mo. – A Missouri school district is taking parents to court in an effort to recover overdue lunch money, a problem the superintendent said costs taxpayers about $30,000 a year.

Some students in the Southern Boone County School District go through the system from kindergarten through graduation without paying for their lunches, and Superintendent Chris Felmlee said that will no longer fly.

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“We’re talking about people who for one reason or another just refuse to pay,” he told KOMU. “I think in the past there’s been a hands-off approach. There’s really been no consequence.”

Now as many as 70 families in the district that owe lunch money could end up in court as part of a new policy on balances that reach $500, he said.

Other potential punishments including banning parents who don’t pay up from attending graduation ceremonies, Felmlee said.

“As so this policy allows us to take them to small claims court to try to receive that compensation back,” he said.

School board president Barrett Glascock told the news site some parents qualify for the federal free- or reduced-price lunch program, but they don’t bother to fill out the proper documents to get their kids signed up.

Glascock contends parents have several options to avoid a lawsuit.

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“We will work out a payment plan for them,” he said. “They can sign up for free and reduced lunch. Some of them just don’t fill out the paperwork and they have to fill out the paperwork in order for it to work,” he said.

The district isn’t the only one in the area with lunch money problems, though it seems to be the only one suing parents to recover the losses.

“We make several contacts with the parents: mail or phone,” Derrick Hutsell, assistant superintendent in Willard, told KY3. “Also the building principals may get involved with that just to see what’s going on and see if it’s something we may be able to help them to figure out a payment plan or something like that, so they can get up-to-date on their payments.”

Hutsell said Willard schools bans students from walking at graduation if they haven’t paid off their lunch bills.

“It’s not a profitable thing, but we try to make sure the school district’s not a burden for the taxpayers in the district as well, so we have a procedure in place that’s worked really well for our district,” he said.