It's pretty significant. Where it may cost 85,000 educated child who goes out of district, we're doing it at 31,000 per child. Significant. And it also I mean I our values and our moral statement, at least mine and I know our board, we want our kids in our district. We will create programs because we want kids in our district. They're our kids. If we can keep them, we keep them. So athletics, I think this is an important piece. Uh we talk about uh structural deficit that 300,000 on a yearly basis. It's just been occurring. How do we make it balanced every year? That's a great question. It's at the end of the year. Chris Matthew literally goes through line item by line item of our operating budget to see did we overspend or underspend a certain line item for the year. And if some salary savings exist, we start then shifting some of our costs from athletics into that line item so we're not having that deficit.
So, I felt like after getting that feedback and looking at at some of the conversations we've been having, it made sense for me to use that internal to us Boilston capital account to cover the Boilston Elementary needs one-time needs as well as their share of the Dontto one-time needs. So we will that is their money effectively. We're holding it on their behalf more or less. So each of these items will not be assessed to the town of Boilston. Instead, we will pay them out of that account. Um uh the only three items that would remain and and we we use a little bit of sort of logic. Um we are renters in the building. So, as we started figuring out what we can cover, what we we really can't cover, um we said anything we can pick up and take with us, we'll try to pay for and anything that would be sort of intrinsic to the building or the property, um we would look to come from the towns.
So that's kind of on our to-do list for the next couple of months. Um for the next goal um in bringing equity there's a kind of a clear through line there but truly looking at ways to create high expectations for all learners and it's kind of twofold. That's academic. So that's in line with um you some of the academic goals that Drew already mentioned, but in terms of knowing our students and so using data, using our connections with those students to figure out what makes every person tick, what's going to help support them, how do we um create different interventions and different ways of instruction to support all students and make sure that everybody's feeling seen and heard um and as as successful as they can be. And also looking um how they are as members of our community. And so having students feel again like they are a part of the high school community, that they have their own voices heard.
She said, no. [laughter] And I have seen her since with her children in elementary school, middle school, and high school. And she's always involved. And one thing I didn't hear today, but she did just a couple of weeks ago. She was on stage dancing at the talent show at the Isuza High School with her son and the teacher. I mean, she really gets involved. So, congratulations to everyone and thank you Um, can we come forward to take a a photo? Oh, at this time, I'm sorry. At this time, we're going to take a short recess uh to take a group photo and to allow those attendees who wish to leave the opportunity to leave before we resume our board meeting. Can all board members join me in the center to take a group photo? It's Oh, We're We're going to start our meeting promptly. Thank you all for coming.
when you get back to the hotel and as soon as it's lights out, that responsibility of making sure the kids are safe in their room goes over to paid security guards that are provided by um the company that we end up contracting with. >> Okay. And then um how many fifth grade students do we have? >> So keep keep in mind it would actually be fourth grade students that we currently have that would go next year. Um, most of it, Miss Rico, I want off the top of my head. Um, >> it's usually about 60. >> We're usually probably that 58 to like 68 kids. Um, keep in mind this is for next year, so we don't even have all of the kids registered yet. Um, the company that presented, keep in mind that's one company. Every company has different rules. they require a minimum of 15 kids attend um before you can actually secure a trip.
And as much as I would like to abate this to show our taxpayers that, you know, we we care about them as well, we kind of walking on thin ice on some things here. So, I would, me personally, I would recommend that we don't abate that 500, $600,000, whatever that is. That's me. I hear the rest of the board. >> For the novice of us that are in the room, can you give us the fifth grade explanation when we say, "Do we want to abate?" What does the question mean? >> Yeah. So, basically, um, you know, we have our annual levy that's primarily funded by all of our taxpayers within the district. Um the levy adjustment is uh allows the district to be made whole um based on the outcome. And I'm so glad I got Bill here. Uh I know you if I rely on John on this one, but um any property tax appeal boards that the district loses, the county allows you to make an adjustment to make up for those funds from people that have the means to appeal their property taxes.
Um the school choice is the uh elephant in the room that the number of dollars and this is a different I don't know if you'll be able to see this one very well. Um, but these are my projections through the use of of revolving accounts to fund your operations. Michael talks about the stabilization fund uh and enterprise funds to manage salaries. Well, that's what we're doing and have been doing for years. So, if you use the 2.25% 25% uh that that Michael has has presented um for just an increase in the overall operating budget for the Ash public schools. That's a $1 million increase. So, think about this. So, anticipation in the 2627 school year, we would need $1.6 million. I'm just going to focus on school choice for a moment. We would need $1.6 million of school choice funds to be utilized to pay for salaries as well as $450,000 of operation expenses.
Um, additionally, this these items would sort of extend beyond what we have available in the boiling capital account. So, uh, these three items we initially had looked Boilston did come through and say that they are willing to do the bathroom project this year. The other two, um, they're not really comfortable with adding to um to their their use of free cash this year. So, that can be a conversation. So, then we get into Han to to Hanto and again we have the two shares, right? Berlin assessment uh the Berlin piece and Boilston piece. Again, Berlin said they are comfortable picking up more an assessment particularly if the school committee is willing to um help with the the operating side. So I went ahead and said okay we will assess the Berlin share to Berlin and then the Boilston share um can still be covered by that uh fund balance in the Boilston capital account.
So we've been um looking at different programs and being able to have some of these different programs for um assemblies to kind of reconnect, lay out behaviors. We mentioned our pep rally in passing and we're planning, you know, another one for the spring, at least one more. Um, but one of the things I just wanted to highlight about that is it it what we were going for, we were going to keep improving at it each time we do it was celebrating not just athletics or not just some of the big things but everything every club, honor societies, different kinds of um volunteer organizations in the school and to just kind of celebrate and make sure that students know that they have those opportunities as well. Again, the idea of knowing our students and working to support them. And then the last one, the workforce development really is sort of how do we ensure that our staff are have the best tools at their disposal and training and and time to spend to be able to do all of that, be able to do all of those goals.
We are going to be moving on to item 7.1, comments on public comments on agenda or non-aggenda items. Hope, do we have any blue cards? Thank you, Da. Do we have any hands raising on Zoom? We have no hands on Zoom. Thank you. >> I know. Yes. I'm waiting for them to pop up. >> Anthony Luhan, please come to the podium. You're when you start speaking the time will start. Okay. Can you hear me now? Oh, perfect. Sorry about that. Uh, for the record, uh, this comment relates to IEP services direct account uh, district accountability. Good evening, madame vice president and board of uh, Asuza Unified School District. My name is Anthony and I'm here tonight not as a community member, but as someone advocating for students and families who depend on this district to provide uh the services they are legally and morally entitled to receive.
We don't expect for there to be as many kids as far as percentage wise is the eighth grade trips just because of the age. We think there will be more parents that are a little more concerned about center or don't have the availability to go as well. Um talk a little bit about the adult price. So if a parent wants to go, it is not that it's actually costs more for an adult because of the lodging situation because there's only um two adults in each room at that point as well as the food intake. It's typically a little bit higher for an adult than a fifth grader. >> So and you said that two teachers would be going. >> So as of right now, Mrs. Adams and Mrs. career are the ones that this is what they want to do and the ones that are presenting this before you um tonight.
So, um, this is an annual process as, as President Brown stated, uh, we did not abate, uh, last year's levy, and like I said, it will not affect our levy going forward. It's not part of our base levy. It's just a one-time levy to make up for any losses that the district faced from property tax object object. >> I think it might average out to, I don't know, 20 bucks per family or something like that. I'm just throwing a number out there, but it's a very relatively small number, but any number is important. Any dollar the taxpayers could be relieved of is important, but I'm just looking holistically at the district and what we have seen forecast over the next couple years that I think it's best that we we hold on to that. That's me again. So, we can give it out, distribute it out equally to the taxpayers.
But you get to year two. So let's get to year two, 2028. Go look at school choice. We're in the red by $926,000. We can't sustain it for more than one year at a 2 point at a 2.25% increase. We can't sustain it. That covers 13 teachers salaries and $450,000 of operations. Let's not even consider that there's going to be inflationary costs with the operations that we currently utilize. The scary thing and I, you know, it's not as scary, but [clears throat] at a 3.25% that we've talked about at the school committee level still requires us to utilize those funds at a significant rate where in year two we're looking at a $38,000 deficit in that account. So, it's used up in year two. Year one, it's used up for the most part at a 2.25%. But let's focus on an override. And what does that really mean to us?
So both Boilston Elementary and Boilston and Boilston Sheriff to Hanto could be picked up by that and you will see that in the next slide of items that will not would not be assessed to the town of Boilston. Um, so I believe this largely meets their request while maintaining money in our school choice account um that could be used if the school committee wished to do so to use that for something. Um, the Tanto parking lot realistically as we're looking at this um it's it's unrealistic that we're going to expand this parking lot this summer at this point. Um there's a lot of work to be done. We are still waiting. There's a $100,000 grant that we have been told we are assured of having, but we have not had any official word from the state on yet. So, we're in a little bit of limbo there.
So, we've been very intentional about professional development time, making sure that that's aligned with district and school goals, looking at our curriculum, not just, you know, revising kind of in a vacuum, but looking globally, how do we want to make sure that we've got the best um layers of instruction, the best new updated material, what is high quality instruction, what does that mean to our teachers? So using again that professional development time our um internal our PL we call the professional learning teams or our PLTS um nice example of that actually happened this week where we had some of our staff go in and just do a little reboot and get some feedback about our own MCSS processes and our intervention strategies. Making sure that staff know everything that they can about our own process and give us feedback as well again to do everything we can to support our students have that ability.
I want to start by saying that collaboration between families and schools should never feel like a battle. Yet for many parents navigating the IEP services, this exactly what is uh that's exactly what has become. Sorry. Uh what should be a partnership focused on child success often turns into struggle just to secure basic services. Parents are not asking for anything extraordinary. We are asking for the basic support services that students with individual education program require to succeed. These supports are not optional and they should not require constant fighting, repeated meetings and unnecessary obstacles just to be implemented. Unfortunately, the pattern many families experience is the lack of responsiveness and the lack of accountability. When those services fall short, when concerns are rised, they should be met with solutions and transparency, not resistance. This is why I'm standing here today calling for accountability and leadership change. Specifically, I am calling for the resignation of Lynn Musgrow and Aaron Kramer.
>> What what is the parents reaction for those children in which the parents are not financially able to participate in >> I cannot answer that because it'd be speculation at this point. We haven't done any fillers of that. What I can answer is I went to the meeting thinking that a lot of parents would be very skep spec skeptical and I was extremely surprised of the ones that were online and the and there was a lot um so I want to say probably represented 28 different uh families were either in person which I was there's probably only eight and then 20 families were online following it as well. to be able to compete with eighth grade trip. >> So, that's a question that you never know until you do it. Um, I I would say, you know, I've been in the community a long time.
I don't know if it's equally or more equitable or we hold on to it that four, five, $600,000 and we keep it for the expenditures because I don't think things is going to get better for us revenue-wise over the next couple years. I don't think so. I I don't see that happening. New construction, we don't have any tiff expiring. Uh we probably I don't know if we at the point that we aren't losing federal money right now. Are we at that point now? >> Yeah, Dr. Berkins can help out with that. We have seen a significant reduction >> federal money now. >> We're waiting to hear um but um it's possible that we could but we're waiting to hear if there's going to be a reduction or not. >> Okay. So again, how soon do we have to make that decision? you make that decision to be voted on next month or >> no next it would need to be >> we need to take action on it on the 16th.
You can see we could have a budget or a revolving count balance of school choice of about 1.8 million. And there will be community members who say you don't need $1.8 million in your school choice. And I would say I don't disagree. But it's how utilize these funds is what's critically important over the next five years. When we look at the school choice funding, we have opportunities here that don't exist and will not exist otherwise. For instance, getting athletics squared away in terms of the uh deficit. Now, we're not digging into if you look at the athletic revolving, there's a significant amount of, you know, funds left over there as well. Well, Michael talked about the Ashlin public schools taking over the fields come the Ashlin public school fields come July 1. The rentals of the fields, the maintenance of the fields. Well, guess what that costs folks?
When we get that money, my recommendation would be to you utilize that money for the pre-planning work. There will be engineering, there will be site design, uh, bidding specs and things like that to put out and and probably the actual bid package itself. It'll be a very complicated project. I'd feel comfortable if if someone with more expertise and we talk about something of this size, it really starts to make sense um to do so. We also have uh DCF restrictions um that impact sort of that whole design process. So the whole design process can be more extensive than you'd expect. >> And I'm not just talking about with school committee, but for the people in the audience, we that that $100,000 that there was a grant was supposed to be coming our way. it was supposed to expire in June of 2026, right? So, we have not heard or seen anything about that.