Um, you know, that was one of the reasons why they invested in converting this to turf back in 2012 was for greater accessibility. Um, for everyone to have a suitable playing field, right? Um, so that's it. It it would be a a domino effect. But the issue other issues too, we cannot at this point in time pivot and put even if we wanted to a a natural grass field in the summer. we've lost that window. Um, and now we could be detrimental of actually having to close um the field because we're at that point. We we've gone three years past because we've tried to time this and I've I've reiterated this to you. We've timed this for the middle school debt to be paid off to give some financial relief to the towns when we're asking for a number like this. Um, and so we can't push it any further.
I obviously did not convey that well this time. I need you to do two things, Dorothy. One is I need you to know um there's there was a lot more context than the comments. And while timing may not have been stellar and and sometimes word choice, trust me, as a guy who beats himself up every night about his word choices throughout the course of the day, um it like but at the end of the day, I don't think you can own it. And what I the two things I would encourage you to do is number one, for whatever guilt you have over it, please forgive yourself. As a person who struggles with their own personal guilt throughout the day for things that I should not feel guilty about, please forgive yourself. And I don't know that it's necessarily a bad thing, right? Like if you're if if a if a conversation's going to get sparked and and we're going to bring things to a head, sometimes it's better for that to take place in advance of when the recommendations are coming because when it comes in the midst of the recommendations, then the emotion gets attached to the recommendation itself, right?
So I don't I I would be questionable if we could continue next year with the the the um cracked track and the field being at the age that it is and still be safe. So this is the timing. There's really no possibility to push this off. They've also done the risers. It doesn't make sense to not do the field now. So right now well they say do the field but do it natural grass. I will say all all youth sports are starting their spring games without having had a practice unless they've had private access to a turf field outside of the towns, right? So, and that's what it would be. And you saw our our spring sports started on a rainy Monday day and none of those practices would have taken place without the turf. And that's the one turf field in the Yeah. And so I will say to to boost the regional school committee's stance on this um several years ago, probably more than five years ago now, the boosters came and wanted to uh put it into place a plan that would put two more um artificial turfs where our grass fields are.
Um, if it comes in advance of the recommendations, then it puts us in a position to have a conversation like we're having today and think about what are the things we can do to create the connections we need to create to make it easier for people to say yes. There's a I it's been so long since I've read it and I couldn't even tell you most of the things that are in but there's a book called Getting to Yes. Right. And a I'm sorry. Oh, there you go. Right. Yeah. And so, you know, part of it is what you don't want to do is you don't want to attach all of sort of these negative components to what you're trying to get people to say yes to. And so, I I am a weird guy in that I don't think anything happens by accident. And I think most things happen for a reason.
And the regional school committee at the time said no, one turf's enough. Um we can maintain our grass, still do the rotation. So there is that um that balance of not going overboard but having one field here that serves both towns um that allows that almost that not year round but almost year round um accessibility to a playable field. Is this why there was the desire to put the artificial turf at Laurel field also? Yes. That did not pass. Mhm. We just don't like, but I think it was close. Um, and I'm hoping a night meeting versus a Saturday morning meeting where the people who use the turf were not at the meeting will make a difference, but I think you're right. We need to get the word out. I'm sorry. So, 2012. So, we've had said this since 2012. So, as part of the presentation, is there things that are addressing their concerns from an environmental perspective since we've had it for 13 years?
And I think if everybody can stay, you know, pure of intention and focused on the end goal, you know, we can still get where where we need to be. and and have a positive outcome and a positive result. So, I I've been trying I just haven't been able to get to you. I've been trying to get to you to tell you to forgive yourself and not feel bad about it since like the meeting happened. And um I have not successfully done that. Yeah. So, well, I'm So, that's what I've been having guilt over. Every morning I wake up and go, today I've got to make it to Dorothy. I haven't made it to her yet. I'm such a bad human being and a bad superintendent. So, Um yeah, I think I wanted to make some comments mostly to the team. Um and I mean, you know, also some of these things I said yesterday, Jay, so sorry for repeating myself.
Right. So there's um you know there's no there's no testing we can necessarily do right now. We're not near a major um water um source where we are is um any of you don't may know we have Medfield town water here on this campus and the only sort of water that's on our campus is our irrigation wells. Um and we're not near anything where there would be a major runoff if there were if there were issues. um with we're very sens right and again I you know it's it's it's here in do versus in Sherburn and I I don't you know everyone I I respect opinions and I think it's just the composition of the select board right now um they they were very adamant about their their opinions um but I was very respectful in saying I feel like I can counter a lot of and that's what we plan to do um because the regional school committee, you know, wants to see this happen.
But like me and Confer is here to talk about working conditions, salary, benefits, um and anything sort of related to that, not curriculum and instruction. Like Kelly said, we dip our toes into some of those things and like we've always talked about the conditions that the teachers work in um affects how well they're able to do their jobs and all the people that support them. But if you think about, you know, the union for UPS and how they bargain with their employers. What they're bargaining over is the conditions of their work and whether or not there'll be any guys driving the trucks, it's not about how well the packages get delivered. It's not how fast they get delivered. It's not anything like that. It's just that if you can't keep employees, if you can't make them happy, if you can't make them feel fulfilled, no one's going to be driving trucks delivering packages.
And so we're going to do what we need to do to support that. And that's where I feel and I think it's going to go a long way with advisory tomorrow night that we've gotten rid of the crumb rubber as the fill and we've come with the Brockville. I guess tactically from at least those of us on the Sherburn Elementary School committee who have deep connections in the younger community, like how can we help? So we are going to organ So our athletic group is sort of organizing us right now to sort of get the word out. Um so it comes from the outside groups like we I guess my point though is like the boosters are probably not going to hit the people who have sports they're doing baseball coming together with us as well. Yeah. Will there be like a consolidated one pager describing the efforts and sort of benefits of the proposal that we could help Yes, certainly.
And it's the same thing in a school as it is at any other business in the United States. And I promise you, if every single employee in the school district had a six figure salary, health benefits, um there'd probably be no union or union members, everyone would just be, you know, in Tahiti on our summers, right? Um but unfortunately, this is not a good economy. Um we're looking at like anywhere between like four and 8% inflation for like a couple of years now. Um we're not getting between four and 8% raises every year. People's cost of living is going up. We looking last year certified stuff. I know there was a couple external factors, but anywhere between 20 and 30% turnover every year with our certified staff. And when you look at the exit service, at least half of those people, it's salary, it's pay.
So, we are we have a factual website being uh segment on our website right now about this that's all factual. Um and so our athletic trainer is putting that together now. So once that's available, it'll be a go-to place. Okay. Um we also plan to put the um presentation up on our website of the consultant presentation back on February 12th. um that has a good um presentation along with a lot of the questions and answers that came from advisory warrants regional school committee. Um it was a it was a a large joint meeting that night. So um we're working on we are waiting for the bid to come in so that when we went out we knew what our financial commitment was as well. Um so now we're at that point where things are going to start um being publicized. But tonight, I need the regional school committee to um go to the new number for the project and cost that will be funded by the town.
And again, we're not really exactly losing a ton of people to private sector, right? People are jumping ship to other school districts. And so, like Jay was saying, you know, you can spend as much money on PD as you want if you have no one there to receive the PD and like actually, you know, like put in some effort. It's it's very hard to be like a school district that underpays compared to surrounding school districts, but it's also really hard to be a school district. It's like way harder to be a school district that underpays compared to surrounding school district and expects more of their staff and is giving you additional things to do and is longer school day, squeezing you over test scores, right? Oh, we need to make sure that these kids are passing these state tests. I you know I think everyone in our school district does the best that they can but when you're taking anyone who walks in the door you're going to get some people who are like hey I'm gonna put in the level of effort that I get paid for right and you know if those people if more effort is expected of them as it should be we're a school it's our job to educate children they need to be compensated fairly because not everyone is you know in and out of the goodness of their heart people have bills to pay people have real financial considerations it's like I brought up earlier are you going to spend the two or three hours a week to plan extra lessons for your kids or are you going to go do dash because you got bills to pay, right?
Don, can I ask you one quick? Can you when you get the new website with the information, can you push that out to the committee leaders and then trickle down? Absolutely. So, one last question. So of the three alternates that you had added on the blue color and the what was the second one? The exchange lines for the relays. Oh yeah. So um the way that I've crafted this as well too. So we don't have a contingency. So if there are any little small issues that come up, we we are um not adding another layer of money to this. So, what I've explained to both towns is that we're using alternate one and alternate two um which is about uh $50,000 as our contingency. So, if things come up that we have we need funding for, that's where that money is going to go. And we might not do the blue track and the alternate, but we had to when we sign a contract, we have to include all three alternates because we want to get down to three.
Like are you going to go and put in that extra effort to like, oh, look over your notes that you took from the PD, right? Or are you going to go and do something else that can make you some money? And like the last thing I want to talk about is on the board comments about having like a narrow focus and like I see on our agenda that we have like an hour set aside for research. Listen, like I said, our job is to make sure that we have people in these buildings teaching these kids with good working conditions. That's a complicated task. Um I I've agreed in the past like our focus needs to be narrow on salaries, working conditions, benefits. Like we shouldn't dip too much into anything really instructional. Um I before I refer to them as like do your job recommendations like we shouldn't issue recommendations for things that already should be happening or already in policy.
This actually gives us a way to have a contingency. Yeah. And these both decisions are something that can be done later in the process because it's really just the traffic the yeah surfacing. Um and so that's sort of how we're going to move forward with it. Um it's both um both alternate one and two the the track are were highly desirable by the athletic department. It does make a difference and I think you're seeing it more and more if you go to the high school athletic tracks more of that coloring. Um, and so that is it would be a great nice to have, but it's also from the town perspective, it's serving as a contingency. So, it's a dual purpose. Um, but I think that gave us a little more leeway to say we want this blue and gray. Um, but by by saying if we don't run into any issues, we can have that.
Um but it's a complicated task to actually ensure that everyone's working conditions, benefits, pay is like where they should be. We have to go in and look at individual jobs. We have to go in and look at circumstances where a few people might have something messed up, right? and we have to fix those things. Um because if we don't do it, no one is doing that. Like no one is making those decisions from year to year. Of course, the the school leadership of the school district, you know, if there's a little tweak there, a little tweak there, but if it costs too much money, they kick it to us and expect us to make decisions about those things. And so, like, I'm very very very opposed to like, oh, 20 options is a lot of options. Let's get that down to like seven. It's four pages of double spaced font.
But if we do, we've got money there to to cover that. That was also highly suggested by a shoe. It was Why? Why? If we're spending $2 million, why can't we do 20,000 for the color track? Yeah. Yeah. Um I made the difference between the frock sand and then the the uh crumble the crumb that is actually essentially the kind of artificial dirt and the turf. Is that okay? Gotcha. And so the first we were going to reuse everything that we have there. So we will we'll now have to remove that and we'll replace it with the rockail sand. So that's why the cost of that is also probably the cost to remove the old and to put in um the new. Okay. Uh so the next is action item. So we'll just move this to the first. Oh yeah. So just out of order so we don't have to go back.
I don't think this is like a super crazy idea. I understand when it comes to implementation, I think that was a very fair criticism of how many recommendations we had last year. People have to go and like implement all those ideas and we need to be considered of that. Um, but in terms of just like the length of recommendations or like how much reading it is. Um, and again with research, everyone here should know from going to college, getting a degree that you can go and find research to support almost anything in the entire world. you can go and Google, you know, research that supports XYZ thing and you'll get one paper by one person who got a grant to go and research something. Um, you know, it's I think we have our connection between the inputs and the outputs. I don't know that we need like a evidencebacked research paper for every single recommendation we issue.
Yeah. Perfect. So but may I ask just so I'm clear on this. I'm asking a motion to approve the spending of 1.68. Yeah. So remember it was a two-part. Um so we're just changing it the the million 3315 it's it's written down there for you on that 315. So motion to approve remaining because this uh regional it's going to follow the other vote where you voted the 350. So your motion to approve the remaining fiscal year 26 capital project cost of the million 3315. Okay. To be funded oh go ahead to be funded um by member towns based on the fiscal year 26 capital cost assessment percentages. Dober 714,350 and Sherburn 617,150. Um, okay. Thank you so much. Okay. Yeah. Thanks. All right. So, may I have a motion to approve the remaining fiscal year 26 capital project costs of $1,331,500 to be funded by member towns based on fiscal year 26 capital costs assessment percentages.
I think that would be a waste of our time. Yeah. I mean, I I honestly don't think you need a research paper either. I um the one thing I would caution against is like the board concern right is money's tight right so the you know coming forward and saying well we need to give a raise because people are struggling because money's tight well everybody empathizes with that but now you've got a money's tight versus money's tight argument and so I my personal belief is the the argument ment of do we really want to move the system forward and the only way to move the system forward is to move the people forward and retain those people is a more powerful argument that's based in logic instead of my emotional reaction to a tough situation for us as individual employees versus your emotional reaction to watching your neighbors go into receiverhip and being really worried about the budget despite the fact that we're not in that position because thankfully we have, you know, people like Vanessa and Dom and and we, you know, we've been fortunate enough to be able to keep some real talent in our business office.