Yeah, I thought that was funny. >> yourself, James. You dated yourself on that one. That's okay. Um Your next comment, uh Amy, we we actually have had our kids use their um their personal devices in our technology class for a particular unit. It um it's like a total one-off, uh but they they their phones allowed for like more kids to participate in like the I don't know. They made robots and like they could all interact more if they were using their phones, but that's the only time that we've ever done it. So, I agree if it it if it's more at greater than high school, it could be there or not be there, but that's the only time I've seen it happen here. Well, I think that's just like one of those one-off situations where like that's a special situation. Yeah. So, I think delete delete it.
So I hope if we're adding additional hours that that process is clear and you know executed in a way that everybody understands what's supposed to happen. >> Okay, >> that's all. Thank you. >> Thank you. Um and I see something in the chat. >> With the low registration rates for Pelum, how is the cost of additional clerical hours calculated? Um I I Shannon I I'm >> So what's happening here is it's the current employee is school year um not full year and we're adding additional days. So the calculation of that is based on the additional days. Um but it's not a complete full year position at 261 days. It's at 241 days. And so the increase from and I I cannot remember off the top of my head how many days is school year. Um I'm maybe Tanya or Jen remembers. I I know they do.
They're looking to make the next year work based on the employees they have, the services they're offering, etc. So, I'm trying to take a little different approach here, and and that's what I'm I hope you uh will understand when we get through this. So, let's see here. So, as you all know, Michael said this, we are a um we are a salary and benefit-driven organization, right? Um we have at the end of this year, or currently, 360 employees in the Ashland public schools. At the end of FY26, going into FY27, we'll have about 300 40. Um and that's equivalent to what we had in 2017. So, when I hear conversations, "You're adding staff, you're adding staff, you're adding staff," we're actually down to 2017 numbers after this year's budget process. So, it it's it's yes, costs have risen. Uh Michael talks about cost of health insurance.
Now, let's say you waited 10 years. Now, you only have 40 years of growth, but you're still getting that same 9% return, and you're putting in five $5 a week or $20 a month. Now, by the time you by the time you turn 65, you're going to have put in $9,600, but you're only going to have $84,000. This is less than half of what you would have had if you had started 10 years earlier. Now, let's say you waited another 10 years. Okay? Now, you only have 30 years of growth, but you're still getting that same 9% return, and you're putting $20 a month into the market. You've put in $7,200 by the time you turn 65, and you only have $34,000. So, while waiting 5 years or 10 years might not seem like a big deal, it can actually cost you hundreds of thousands of dollars by the time you turn 65.
A staff member was notified that if they wish to waive this right, this discussion will be held in public. So, that's what we are doing now because the employee waived the right to have that. So, if you take a look at the resolution in paragraph number two, it states that the superintendent of schools will recommend that an employee will go on administrative leave with pay until further notice. So, a couple months ago, I was approached by an employee in our district who had allegations made against another member of our of our district. And the allegations were made against our transportation coordinator, Glenn Luciano. The allegations were made in a meeting with myself and Mr. Alfano. The meeting lasted roughly 45 minutes and based on the information that was provided to us, we felt strongly enough that an affirmative action investigation was warranted. This employee has had previous affirmative action investigations in the past.
Well, I think if uh I don't know. It's not It doesn't come up at in general. I think you could delete it cuz it's not saying that you can never use it if your teacher has you use it express, but I do think we should just take out the social media networks. We have uh our journalism club, they have their own Instagram, but it's run by the teacher, but we don't let the kids like access it to like I mean, I guess technically they can view it maybe like but they don't actually do anything with it. I just I don't know. Social media one makes me a little bit nervous just cuz I don't know. How about students may not access social media networks during instructional time periods, period. That's what I'm saying personally, but Are Is everyone else okay if I strike through that last part?
>> Hi Shannon. >> 210 days. The increase is from 210 days to 241. Right. So, it's a total of 31 additional days and that will allow work through the summer whereas right now there is no clerical work during the summer. Um, and then we'll allow her to do or that clerical position to do the registration, the choice, the outreach, things of that sort. Okay. Thank you. Um, don't see anything else in the chat. Let me see. So, I see something in the chat from John Larson. I'm I'm having a hard time understanding. It's a comment. Okay. I think perhaps it's a comment, not a question. Um to Julio's point about how school choice is portrayed in the budget document here is the first bullet in the where pressures exist section. A small overall enrollment with only a portion of students residing in Pelum which impacts funding stability and long-term planning.
So, when that rises, salaries tend to rise a little bit, too, in order to afford some of those costs. Uh we are looking at trying to limit the use of the one-time funds, such as school choice, and I'll talk about what school choice is in a moment. Uh so, I look at it this way, we have two paths forward. We really do as a community. It's we pass the override, which helps us fix uh the the structural deficit that exists year over year. It helps stabilize where we are. It limits our community having to dip into stabilization fund, which Michael didn't even talk about. The risk of us as a community utilizing those one-time funds and not have them when we talk about rainy days, and some folks will say, "Hey, it's there for a rainy day." Well, the rainy day is upon us. It's leaking through the roofs, which by the way, we need to fix it, by the way.
Now, aside from making you more money, what is this going to look like 40 years down the line, 50 years down the line when you decide to retire? Well, it's going to help you build wealth. It could help you retire earlier than you ever could have without investing. And what I personally think is most important is that it can help you reach a higher level of financial freedom. Now, in terms of building wealth, as we just saw before, investing in compound interest is going to allow your money to grow to much larger amounts than it ever could have without investing. And this wealth, you can use it on anything you want, whether that be spending it on your kids, spending it on hobbies, or helping yourself retire earlier. Which leads me into my next point of an earlier retirement. Now, as I just talked about, you're going to have more money.
They were done in house by our administrative team or sorry, members of our affirmative action team. We felt that that since this was not the first affirmative action investigation, that we would like to have a new set of eyes to see what their take is, what their opinion is, what questions they are asking that we might not be asking. So, we reached out to our attorneys. Our attorneys have set up interviews with members that have witnessed or have been witnessed to different events either verbal or physical that involved Mr. Luciano. We have had a few employees who have met with our counsel and have been in hour-long interviews with our counsel. Those interviews are still ongoing. I believe there are a number of interviews left to do. So, what started with one person speaking out with allegations against a co-worker and a peer has now turned into numerous employees meeting with the council and explaining what they have seen or unfortunately what they could have possibly witnessed.
Yeah, I'm okay with that. I'm going to highlight that as well. And then I don't know if there were any other comments on this one. I think we were done on this one. Actually, I'm sorry. Maybe we should hold. We I want to confirm um cuz I don't know if other schools have kids using the make like making Tik Toks or making like videos that they're posting on social media and if the teachers are doing it or not. Like we just us in particular we have Goga handling like the main maintenance and posting of them all like the teacher, but I wonder if we need to find out if other schools are doing something cuz then they may need that like express permission allowed. So then why don't we keep Students may not access social media networks during instructional periods uh I'm sorry, instructional time periods unless directed by staff.
So, I guess that was for Julio in the comment from John Larson. Um, okay. All right, then. I think it's time for us to move on to committee discussion. William, are you putting your hand up? It looks like another community member has her hand raised. >> Yeah, I see a hand. I was um I can ask her to unmute to determine if she's asking another question or if >> Yeah, I just had one more comment to make. >> Oh, hi Diana. >> Hi. Um just to you know the point of breaking out Julio made this point and I just sort of wanted to share my comments on it. If we're breaking out services that the central office was previously doing like registration, I would be interested to see what we are paying specifically like this like this was broken out for other services. >> Okay.
Um there are things that that are out of our control. Uh and education has some of those as well. Uh as always, though, our conversation will always be about what's in the best interest of students. That's my job. I struggle at times. Um and the school committee here would tell you the same. I get it, there are many people who don't have children in the school system anymore. I understand that. My job, I've been hired as the advocate for the Ashland public schools. And that's why I'm here. And that's what I'm trying to to relay to this whole community, that I agree with Michael, great schools, and Claudia's comments up there, great schools lead to great communities, which lead to higher values of houses, uh and a desirable locations. We are about a $49 million organization. So, when we look at the town appropriation from FY26, we get about 44 486 from the town, from taxes.
And when you want to retire, the amount of money that you're going to need differs from person to person. It could be changed based on your lifestyle, where you live, your spending habits. But the one thing that stays constant is that the more money you have, the earlier that you can retire. In addition to this, dividends, which I talked about before, are going to be able to help you can become an income source during your retirement and can help you replace your income. Now, it might not be as large of an income as you had before retirement, but it'll be it'll still be something that you're getting. And this is important. Now, it can also help you live a more enjoyable retirement. As I talked about before, you're going to have more money. So, you'll have you won't have to worry as much about running out of money during retirement.
So, we are in the middle of an affirmative action investigation with this employee. Last week, I was notified by an investigator from the New Jersey Department of Education that this employee, Mr. Glenn Luciano, was arrested. The charges against him according to the investigator were concerning and pending charges against him could be a disqualifying crime or offense. And then it said, we as a district are reminded that if the pending charge results in a conviction, this individual will be permanently disqualified from school employment. So, given the seriousness of this information from a New Jersey Department of Education employee and investigator, we felt I felt that it was most important to let this play out. To notify the Board of Education of the incident and come up with a plan to move forward. No judgment is being made until we have a report done from the affirmative action investigation or through the court system.
Yeah. You're okay with that? I think that would work cuz I don't know what other schools are doing and I I do know some of them are using it. Sorry. What's that different from the original language? That's what I was saying. I don't know if it like we maybe actually do need to keep that scratched out line because um I don't know what all the campuses are doing. Okay. Are we good on that one then? I think so. I'm good. So our next one we had 5-301. Is that correct? Mhm. Can you guys hear that in the background? Yeah. You know That's my husband That is my husband sneezing from the other room. I thought it was a dog barking. It's my husband sneezing from the other room with the door closed. That's how loud it is. I'm going to say I thought I thought it was a dog barking, too.
Thank you. >> I see I see John's hand up also. >> Oh, thanks John. Megan, can you let John Larson in to speak? >> Yes, I am right now. >> Sorry, I clicked the wrong one. Hang on. >> There we go. >> Hi, John. >> John, you should be able to speak now. >> Thank Thanks, everybody. Uh, and thanks for uh all of the important discussion here. I just wanted to maybe add a little color to my comment in the chat, which is that uh the first bullet in the budget document when it talks about pressures on the district and the budget uh talks about how it doesn't mention choice kids, but it's basically the reverse. It's it's implying that choice kids are a problem because of the fluctuating enrollment of the residential population. So I I think it is I just wanted to point out very clearly that Julio's comment is like very clear in the in the pressures on the district or on the on the school budget discussion.
Uh that's the local. Then we have grants and revolving accounts that account for about 4.4 million. The risk of those revolving funds is what I'm trying to fix, and and I'll talk about that in a little bit. But as you can see, 79% of our of our costs are are are our employees. Two paths forward. Now, I'm showing you we can we can discount the 3.25% right now on the other side. That's a conversation I'm having with the school committee because we have to present budgets to the select board for approval at town meeting. And so, we're we're in the process of having uh our public budget hearing required by mass general law in April. Uh these are the two options right now I have on the table for the school committee. So, just I'm just sharing them with you, but we're really here to talk about the override tonight.
And in addition to this, you'll have more money to do what you love, whether that be traveling, hobbies, philanthropy, or whatever you want to do. Next is reaching a level of financial freedom. And financial freedom can be defined as being able to pay for your lifestyle and what you want to do without having to worry about money. Now, one way that people reach financial freedom is from dividends. Now, dividends are a form of passive income, which means that once you click that button and buy the stock, you never have to do anything again. those dividends, you're going to automatically make them. And in addition to this, you can reinvest these dividends and they will have the same compounding effects as your money would as like I talked earlier. So, let's say you had $100 and you made $5 of dividends off of that. Well, the next year you're going to be making dividends off of $105.
So, until that time, this employee will be on a paid leave with no contact with school employees until we have a decision from our attorney regarding the results of the affirmative action case or more information about the outcome of the legal accusations. Okay?