2024-2025 Annual Renewal Online Instructions

Step-by-step instructions can be found under the Training tab on the Tutorials webpage.

All School Food Authorities (SFA) participating in the National School Lunch Program, School Breakfast Program and/or Special Milk Program are required to complete an SFA Annual Renewal prior to the beginning of the school year.

The purpose of the SFA Annual Renewal is to recommence the SFAs’ single permanent agreement between New York State Education Department (SED) and the SFA. Please refer to the following for more information: Single Permanent Agreement. The SFA Annual Renewal is also the mechanism for SED to collect annual program specific information.  SFA’s are required to notify SED of any changes that occur throughout the school year.

Failure to complete the annual renewal prior to the start of the school year may jeopardize reimbursement and may result in the SFA’s program participation being deemed abandoned.  No Renewals will be accepted after December 1st, 2024.  In the event that the SFA fails to renew, the SFA will be required to submit a new SFA program application in accordance with Child Nutrition Program Administration (CNPA) procedures during the designated annual enrollment period. In addition, the SFA will be subject to a close out review in accordance with CNPA procedures.

The following directions must be followed in order to update information.

To access the renewal, log into the Child Nutrition Management System (CNMS) with your username and password, go to the blue menu bar under “Program", select “SFA Annual Renewal” from the drop-down menu, select the year 2024-2025 and click “Find”. The 2024-2025 school year annual renewal will display.

Unique Entity Identifier (UEI) Number and SAM Expiration Date

• Ensure the UEI number is correct and has not expired. If expired, visit www.SAM.gov to renew registration.​
  • After the renewal of the UEI number, it will take one week to renew and for the data to be transferred to the annual renewal.

Contact Information

Review all contact information to ensure that this information is accurate and complete. Please note, that after each update it is necessary to click “Program” on the tool bar, select “SFA Annual Renewal” and the “2024-2025” school year in order to return to the renewal.

Verify your SFA’s name and address.  Address information is provided by The State Education Department Reference File (SEDREF).

• If you are a representative from a School District, Public School, Nonpublic School, Charter School or BOCES and you need to contact SED for a change in your contact information (including Director of Special Ed), or for a BOCES virtual location, please proceed as follows:
  • For Nonpublic School CFO information, the change must be captured on this CFO form or this CFO form in PDF and emailed to datasupport@nysed.gov.
  • For all other contact info changes, including CEO, for the above types of Institutions, the change must be on the Institution's letterhead and emailed to datasupport@nysed.gov

• Review the Food Service Director, Fiscal Contact and School Business Official contact information, as these are required to complete the renewal, to ensure it is accurate and complete.
  • To update a contact person’s information or to change the contact person, click on the corresponding contact name under Contact People and complete the following steps:
    • To change the name of the contact person, click on the first “New” button under Contact People.
      • Enter the contact person’s name and choose their role by using the drop-down box next to the words “Contact Role.” Then click insert. You will see the word “Success!” in green.
      • Next click on “Back to SFA.”
    • To change the phone number or e-mail on the “New” button under Phone/Fax/Email.
      • Choose from “Device Type” and enter the information in the “Value” box then click on the “Insert” button. Again, you will see the word “Success!” in green.
    • Once this is completed go to program at the top of the screen and then click on “SFA Annual Renewal” and choose the 2024-2025 school year to get back to the Annual Renewal Home Page.

Certification of Acceptance

*Please note, this information is not required if all the RAs within the SFA participate in Provision 2 or Community Eligibility Provision.

• The Certification of Acceptance must be completed as part of the annual renewal process designating a Reviewing Official, Verification Official and a Hearing Official. The Hearing Official must be someone removed from the application review and approval process.
• The name and titles of the Reviewing Official, Verification Official, and Hearing Official are required fields.
  •  To begin entering the name and titles of the designated officials, click on the underlined title “Reviewing Official”, then click on the “New” button under the heading “Certification Officials”. Enter the Name, Title, and select the type of official; then click “Insert”. Repeat this process to enter the Verification Official and the Hearing Official. After all, three official’s information have been entered, go to the blue menu bar at the top of the page and click on “Program”, then “SFA Annual Renewal” and choose the 2024-2025 school year to return to the Annual Renewal Home Page.
  • ​The Reviewing Official and Verification Official may be the same person; however, the Hearing Official cannot be the Reviewing or Verification Official.  A Message will appear if the same name is entered for the Hearing Official and either the Reviewing or Verification Official.

Exemptions/Waivers

• If your SFA has previously been approved for the RCCI Age/Grade Group and/or one of the Religious Exemption Waivers, this will be noted on the Annual Renewal. For information on these available exemption/waivers, please contact your Child Nutrition Program Representative.
• Click here for information on the Paid Lunch Equity: Guidance for the 2024-25 school year. For school year 2024-2025, SFAs with a positive or zero balance in the nonprofit school food service account as of June 30, 2023, are exempt from PLE pricing requirements. The PLE exemption will need to be elected on the SFAs Annual Information page.
• To elect the exemption, go to the School Food Authority General Information page, click on the SFA Annual Information box, choose school year 2024-25, mark the box next to PLE Exemption, click on the update box.

Participate in Farm to School **NEW SY 2024-25**

Does your SFA purchase food from local farmers or venders? If yes, then select “Y”.

• Scroll down to ‘Participate in Farm to School’ click on the drop-down box to choose “Y” (yes) or “N” (no).
• Click on ‘Update’.

Approved Programs

Approved programs are displayed next to “Program Participation” on the SFA Annual Renewal page. Lunch participation is designated as “Under 60%” or “Over 60%” in reference to the percentage of free and reduced lunches served. Over 60% SFAs receive an additional $.02 for each lunch served.

If your SFA no longer participates in a program that is listed for the 2024-2025 school year, immediately notify your Child Nutrition Representative in writing. This cannot be changed online.

Recipient Agency (RA) Information

All RAs that have been approved to operate for the 2024-2025 school year under your SFA will be listed on the renewal. For each RA, review and update the information as follows in the instructions below.

• New Recipient Agency (RA): SFAs may apply to operate the Child Nutrition Programs at a new RA (school) according to the established application process found here: Child Nutrition Programs Application Submission Process | Child Nutrition | NYSED

RA Information to Review and Update

• Review and verify the information noted for breakfast, lunch, snack, and Special Milk programs for each RA.
• • If a breakfast, lunch,  snack or Special Milk program for an individual RA needs to be removed, you must notify your Child Nutrition Program Representative in writing. Requests to delete programs for an RA cannot be done online.
  • New RA programs cannot be added online. If you wish to add a program to your existing RA, submit a request for a Program Addition Form which can be found at the following link http://www.cn.nysed.gov/form/new-application-request-form
• Verify the names and addresses for each RA. RA name and address information is provided by The State Education Department Reference File (SEDREF).
• • If you are a representative from a School District, Public School, Nonpublic School, Charter School or BOCES and you need to contact SED for a change in your contact information (including Director of Special Ed), or for a BOCES virtual location, please proceed as follows:
    • For Nonpublic School CFO information, the change must be captured on this CFO form  or this CFO form in PDF and emailed to datasupport@nysed.gov
    • For all other contact info changes, including CEO, for the above types of Institutions, the change must be on the Institution's letterhead and emailed to datasupport@nysed.gov.

For each Recipient Agency repeat the following steps:

Indicate the Method of Service for each building by clicking on “Method of Service."

The different methods of service are as follows:

• Satellite – Meals are not prepared at the site
• Sat-Prep – Meals are prepared and served on site and sent to additional sites
• Self-Prep – Meals are prepared on site and served only at this site
• Vended – Prepared meals are delivered from an outside organization
  
  • If vended, enter the vendor’s name in vendor field​

After you have entered the Method of Service, click the “Update” button then scroll to the top of the screen and click on “SFA Annual Renewal” to return to the Annual Renewal Home Page. Repeat this process for each RA.

​Grade Levels: ​​​Enter the participating grade levels for each building by clicking on “Grades in Building” and checking the appropriate boxes. Click the “Update” button.

Breakfast After the Bell (BAB)

“Breakfast After the Bell” is when a SFA offers all students a school breakfast after the instructional day has begun. Schools can offer Breakfast After the Bell by implementing the alternative breakfast service model such as breakfast in the classroom, “grab and go” breakfast, and second chance breakfast.

• Scroll down to “Recipient Agency Programs” to complete Breakfast After the Bell (BAB) information.
• Click on “Breakfast” under Program Name.
• Scroll down to “BAB required” to confirm if the RA is mandated to implement BAB.​
• Next click on the drop-down box to choose “Y” (yes) or “N” (no) for “BAB Offered”. If mandated to implement BAB, the SFA is required to indicate which BAB Method(s) are used or request a waiver. If the SFA is not mandated but offered BAB it is required to indicate which BAB method(s) are used.
  • If “Y”, indicate which “BAB Method” used. Click the “Update” button.
• For RAs required to offer BAB but would like to apply for a waiver the information can be found at: http://www.cn.nysed.gov/form/breakfast-after-bell-waiver-request.
• Repeat this process for each RA.

Meal Service Times, Prices, Offer vs Serve & Average Daily Participation (ADP)

To update Meal Service Times, Prices and Offer vs Serve information, click the “Recipient Agency Information” link that can be found in the middle of the screen above where your RAs are listed. This will allow you to enter the information by program for all RAs at one time. You may also update this information individually for each RA by clicking each program listed within the RA.​

• Meal Service Times are rolled over from last year. Please update the times if the program serving times have changed.
• Prices: Enter the prices charged to the Paid Price students for the 2024-2025 school year.
  • Schools are required to charge students for paid meals at a price that is on average equal to the difference between free meal reimbursement and paid meal reimbursement. Schools that currently charge less are required to gradually increase their prices over time until they meet these requirements.
  • When charging multiple paid lunch prices, enter the most frequently used price.
  • SFAs that do not charge students should enter zero (“0”) into the price field.
• Offer vs. Serve: Ensure the option is correctly indicated “Yes” or “No” for each RA. If the option is incorrect, select the correct response and click “Update”.
• Proj ADP (Projected Average Daily Participation): The projected ADP will be displayed for each RA by program (breakfast, lunch and/or snack). Review the projected ADP for each program and ensure it is an accurate projection for the 2024-2025 school year. Changes to the projected ADP cannot be made in CNMS by your SFA. If you need to make a change to the ADP listed on your renewal, please email your CN representative prior to beginning program operations.

After the updates have been made, click the “Update” button then go to the blue menu bar at the top of the page and click on “Program”, then “SFA Annual Renewal” and choose the 2024-2025 school year to return to the Annual Renewal Home Page.

 

Days of Operation by Program - to be completed for ALL Non-public SFAs

• All SFAs must enter days of operation by program for each RA.
• To enter the days of operation, complete the following steps for each RA:​
  • Within each RA, under the “Program Information” click on the program you wish to enter the days of operation for (Breakfast, Lunch, Snack)
  • Under the heading “Days” click on “New”
  • Enter all days of operation for the program and then click insert.
  • Go to the blue menu bar at the top of the page and click on “Program”, then “SFA Annual Renewal” and choose the 2024-2025 school year to return to the Annual Renewal Home Page.
  • Repeat the above steps for each program and RA

The information below is automatically generated by CNMS and will not require updating.

• Months of Operation for the current year are listed. If the beginning start date of the SFA is changing from September to July or August, submit a letter on your school’s letterhead explaining the educational nature of the program being offered to this office. This cannot be changed online.
• Severe Need Breakfast Status is indicated for 2024-2025 school year as: “No” or “Yes” (Severe Need).  If the percentage indicated is 40% or more, the RA qualifies for Severe Need reimbursement for the 2024-2025 school year.
• Snack Needy Status is listed next to each RA. If 50% or more of the students in the RA are eligible for free and reduced meals, then the RA is “Snack Needy” eligible. Once a RA is determined to be "Snack Needy", eligibility will continue for five years.

Submitting the Annual Renewal

• Once you have completed the review and update of your SFA’s renewal, read the certification statement and click “I Agree”. Your Annual Renewal is then processed.  If you do not see this message, recheck all fields to ensure that a required field was not unintentionally left blank.
• If the SFA is currently out to bid for a new Food Service Management Company (FSMC) Contract, the “I Agree” submit button will not be available until the FSMC information for 2024-2025 is finalized in CNMS.

*It is important to note that information contained in the SFA and RA annual information screens, as well as the contact people module and RA general information screens, must be updated any time there is a change during the school year to ensure we have the most up-to-date information on file. Failure to do so may result in the withholding of payments, suspension, or termination of the program.