Out of place: the court "planted a bomb" for free meals for schoolchildren
The Office of the Federal Treasury, following an audit in Murmansk, found that the School Nutrition Center spent half of the federal subsidy allocated for free breakfasts for elementary school students, on staff salaries, insurance premiums and household needs. The Treasury issued an order to eliminate violations, but the municipal enterprise, the organizer of school meals, challenged it in court. And the courts recognized that the contractor had acted within the law. This decision is comparable to an exploding bomb for the industry, because, in fact, those who feed children at school with federal subsidies were directly allowed to "climb into the plate" of schoolchildren and take part of the funds from there for the needs of the organization, experts warn. This can lead to serious problems in the field of school nutrition. Izvestia investigated the problem in more detail.
What did they spend half of the federal funds on?
In mid-March, a ruling was published by the Arbitration Court of the North-Western District on the dispute between the Murmansk municipal Autonomous institution Center for School Nutrition and the Federal Treasury Department for the Murmansk Region. The Ministry of Education and Science, the Ministry of Finance of the region and the Committee on Education of the Murmansk administration also participated in the case. On February 9, the Arbitration Court considered the Treasury's cassation appeal against the decision of the Murmansk Region Arbitration Court dated July 11, 2025 and the decision of the 13th Arbitration Court of Appeal dated October 13.
The School Nutrition Center asked the courts to invalidate the Treasury's submission made in January 2025 following an audit of the use of subsidies allocated in 2023 for free meals for 1st–4th grade students in the city's schools.
A total of 136.4 million rubles were allocated from the federal budget for these purposes (about 60 million more from the regional and local budgets). The Treasury found that 66.5 million rubles from the federal budget were spent on wages, insurance premiums, household needs and the maintenance of institutions (that is, utilities, equipment repairs, cleaning, etc.).
The Treasury was confident that the federal subsidy was intended exclusively for the purchase of food, and recognized the expenditure of funds as inappropriate, demanding the return of 66.5 million rubles to the budget.
The School Nutrition Center decided to challenge this representation in court. The company explained its actions by saying that catering is impossible without the availability of qualified staff — cooks, kitchen staff, as well as without the maintenance of canteens and equipment. At the same time, neither the Budget Code, nor Rules No. 1642 on the state program "Development of Education", nor the subsidy agreement explicitly prohibit the use of allocated funds for these expenses.
The Treasury objected that the average price of hot meals, in accordance with Rules No. 1642, consists solely of the cost of a set of food products, and when calculating the amount of the subsidy, only the cost of purchasing food is taken into account. Therefore, it can only be spent for these purposes. Nothing else is specified in the rules, agreement and act of the Ministry of Education. The Treasury also referred to several letters from the Ministry of Education and the Ministry of Finance, which also indicate the targeted nature of the subsidy.
However, the courts of all instances sided with the "School Nutrition Center." They assumed that the purpose of the subsidy was to provide free hot meals for students, and it also included wages, rent and maintenance of premises, equipment repairs, sanitary treatment of premises, etc. At the same time, there is no direct prohibition in all regulations on the use of subsidies for wages, insurance premiums and household needs. Only the purpose of the grant is determined, and no closed list of expenses has been established.
As for the explanatory letters from the Ministry of Education and the Ministry of Finance, the courts rejected them, considering them not directly relevant to the case.
Thus, the Treasury's order to eliminate these violations was declared invalid. In fact, the court recognized that the costs of providing school canteens can be funded by federal subsidies for food.
"The plate will be half empty"
The court's decision may have the effect of an exploding bomb for the industry, Vladimir Chernigov, president of the Institute of Industrial Nutrition, told Izvestia. Moreover, a similar situation is happening in other regions — at the conference in St. Petersburg "Legal regulation of social nutrition in the Russian Federation" on March 20, representatives of Bashkortostan reported that a similar dispute is now being considered in the courts of the republic.
— Now the practice in the regions is different: someone gives all the money from the subsidy for food, that is, they go directly to the child's plate, and someone uses this money for everything else. And, as we can see now, he does it completely legally," the source said.
According to him, until now, many were afraid to run into claims of misuse of funds: the Treasury's order to return the money spent looks like a minor punishment, since very often in cases of federal subsidy spending everything can end up with prosecutor's checks and real criminal cases.
The amount of the subsidy is determined based on a clear logic — the cost of products. But given the need for catering, funds are often spent on related items. The consequence of legalizing this phenomenon, according to Vladimir Chernigov, is that "children's plate will be half empty legally." After this precedent, all catering organizers will be able to legalize the practice of taking funds for employee salaries and rental of premises from a child's plate.
This desire can be understood: in social nutrition, the minimum margin that ensures the quality of food is at least 1 to 1. In fact, Murmansk calculated something like this: 48% of the federal subsidy went not to food, but to catering, the expert explained. However, in this situation, it would be correct to ensure that employees are paid for their work, insurance premiums, and household needs using other budget lines.
At the same time, the actual menu of an elementary school in Murmansk for breakfast neither now nor in 2023 had meat and fish dishes and a sufficient amount of fruit, said Sergey Maslov, Vice president of the Institute of Industrial Nutrition. Basically, it only included porridge. With this approach, the standards for proteins, fats and carbohydrates are met, and the food is inexpensive, but very monotonous.
Was the court right
Tatyana Butskaya, first deputy chairman of the State Duma Committee on Family Protection, Fatherhood, Motherhood and Childhood, stressed that the court's decision was justified, since it was not specified anywhere how this subsidy should be spent.
— There is, as they say, only the spirit of the law, which says that it is necessary to provide children with food. But the letter of the law — that all the money that is transferred to the regions (now it is more than 80 billion rubles) should go directly to food — is not. And, of course, such a court decision may be a starting point for other regions to begin transferring some of the money from subsidies to salaries, equipment, and so on," she told Izvestia.
Sergey Maslov confirmed that the courts simply did not find in the regulations a clear indication of the purpose of such a subsidy — neither in the decree of the Government of Russia, nor in the agreements of the Ministry of Education with the subjects, nor in the regulations of the regions and municipalities.
At the same time, the need to determine these types of expenses was noted by the Accounting Chamber of Russia back in 2022, the source added.
The lack of uniform cost calculation rules is a long-standing problem of the school nutrition system, Valery Alekseev, head of the Investigation Bureau of the Popular Front, admitted. According to him, in some regions, the allocated amount includes only food, in others — food along with the costs of organizing the process, in others — the region itself pays extra for cooking by an outsourcing company.
Now, the courts have not only legalized the right to spend federal subsidies for any purpose, but also legalized the right of subjects and municipalities not to allocate funds for salaries, dishes, and the like, because they can be taken from federal subsidies, said Sergey Maslov.
At the same time, the court, having decided on the case, did not give any instructions to the executive authorities, which, according to the Budget Code, are required to determine the purpose of any subsidy. As a result, according to the expert, the federal subsidy of 83 billion rubles risks falling into the category of inefficient expenses. No one will be held responsible for this formulation alone.
The situation is also particularly dangerous in the sense that the regions will soon begin competitive nutrition procedures in the 2026-2027 academic year, and the new practice may finally take hold. It will be necessary to closely monitor this situation, emphasized Vladimir Chernigov.
How to solve the problem
Vladimir Chernigov sees the solution to the problem in resolving the issue of the use of subsidies and, in general, the nutrition situation for schoolchildren in the new law "On Social Nutrition", which is currently being actively discussed.
—We want to prescribe a clear price formula there so that there is a clear structure for determining the cost of food," the source told Izvestia, expressing hope that the draft law could get to the State Duma in the fall.
Tatiana Butskaya said that in response to the parliamentary inquiry on the draft law, about 70% of Russia's regions sent their position, which shows a keen interest in this topic. Of the respondents, more than 80% of the subjects of the Russian Federation supported the adoption of the law on Social Nutrition.
— So far, there are many questions to be answered: about the regional peculiarities of nutrition, about the specifics of financing the draft law, about the organization that will be responsible for social nutrition. We plan to hold meetings on the bill in each federal district before submitting it for discussion in the State Duma," the parliamentarian said.
Izvestia sent a request to the Ministry of Education, the Ministry of Finance, the Federal Treasury and the administration of the Murmansk Region. The Ministry of Finance stressed that the rules for granting subsidies for free meals to primary school students were approved within the framework of the state program "Development of Education", and the Ministry of Education of the Russian Federation is the main administrator of funds responsible for forming the conditions for granting subsidies and criteria for selecting recipients.
The Ministry of Education and Science told Izvestia that the goals, conditions and procedure for the allocation of subsidies are set out in the rules approved by Appendix No. 29 of the state program for the Development of Education. The calculation formula implies that it is used to provide financial support for hot meals specifically "in terms of purchasing the average daily set of food products used for cooking." Therefore, the subsidy, according to the Ministry of Education, should be submitted precisely for this and "is strictly targeted and cannot be used for other purposes."
Other approaches to spending subsidies do not allow for monitoring the targeted nature of their use and ensuring that federal budget funds are directed specifically to providing hot meals to students, the Ministry of Education emphasized.
Other agencies had not provided a response at the time of publication.
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