It's not. It's my husband. Imagine sitting next to that in the driver seat while you're driving. On a road trip when you're tired, just saying. Love my husband, but yes. That's hilarious. It does startle me sometimes. He's going to kill me that this is live. Okay. Um And public and and public. I mean, he does that in public. So There have been times when people literally have jumped next to him. Okay. I Sorry. I'm going to get back on track. I'm tired. Breathe in some oxygen to get my brain going again. Okay. Um I don't think there's any comments on this one. Did Oh, just kidding. I did. Um and then do we you guys need a few minutes to like read through this first before we jump to it? I've read this one. I didn't have any didn't have any comments that you guys hadn't already picked out.
And that is I think what he was trying to come at when it was saying how um choice students are uh portrayed in the document as a risk and a challenge when uh the rest of the actual data in the document is very clear that they've been a stabilizing force for a very long time in the in the Pelum school history. Thanks for the comment. >> Okay. Thank you, John. And also your um your written public comment is posted to the agenda. Thank you. >> All right. >> I do not see anyone further. >> Okay. Um then we're going to move on to committee discussion. Um who wants to start? William, thank you. >> I guess I'll start. Um, I took some notes, so let me see. Uh, I wanted to I guess this is asking a question. Com whatever. Um when Shannon you made uh the comment that the um we pay for 4% of the most of the district stuff and it if you really look at the numbers it should probably be 6%.
And so, we let's focus on that left side. An operational override gets us to a 6.18% increase for next year over the current appropriated amount in FY20 um six. What does this do for us? It helps secure long-term financial health, uh structural stabilization. It moves $1.1 million in these in this school choice account, in these one-time funds, into operations. So, we're paying these salaries out of one-time funds. They will dry up, and we will not have them in the future if we don't have the override pass. That's the reality. We have about 400 plus thousand in operations that should be part of the the overall budget. This helps in this process fully funding athletics for the Ashland public schools. We typically run about a 300 And I've I've looked at this for 16 years, so I know. Um we we typically run about a $300,000 deficit in athletics year over year.
So, this can make sure you don't have to worry as much about where that next paycheck is coming from and running out of money. Now, at this point, some of you might be asking, how can I invest? And since a lot of us here are under the age of 18, our options are somewhat limited, but there are still great ways that we can invest in the market. First of all is the Fidelity Youth Account. Now, this is a program that was started by Fidelity in 2021, and it's for teens aged 13 through 17 to invest in the market. Now, there's no minimum amount that you have to put into this account, and your parents also have to have an account at Fidelity in order for you to have this account. And now in addition to this, there are some tax exemptions since you are a teenager.
So, I don't know if any board members have any questions. Concerns? Yes. You said he should have no contact with school employees. Yes. But you would also mean that he should have no contact with anyone from the school, especially students, right? You wouldn't want any contact with students besides the employees. Yes. So, no no contact with students, no contact with employees until until further notice. Are there any other questions? Concerns? Mr. Alfano, I know you did the budget presentation. Is there anything that you would like to add resolution-wise? Yeah, just quickly, Mr. Alfano. Obviously, we have focused over the last couple of months of 2026-2027, but we can't take our eyes off of 2025-2026 because it has its own unique challenges. Again, the forecast for the first half of 2026 for medical and prescription was X. The actuals came in about $450,000 high. That's a challenge to the budget and we're going to look very closely as we get closer to the end of the year to see the dynamics of our surplus.
Justin or James, did you need a moment to review it? Not me. I didn't, either. So, we can go ahead and start with your comment. Okay. Um so, okay. Okay, so this is about I'm going to recenter myself again. Um Nothing in this policy should should be read as prohibiting the district from Um so my question was and I read it twice, but maybe I missed it was something in terms of do we need something that explicitly states I know that most of our schools are uniform, but not all of them are. Um and I wonder if schools will continue to be uniform schools as they're being rebuilt. Um but one that talks about explicitly prohibiting clothing that promotes the use of drugs or alcohol etc. or unsafe articles of clothing and I'm going to say this cuz early 2000s Um do you remember or like from the 90s those like spike earrings that people used to have?
Um I'm just curious if our enrollment is taking total enrollment or only town kids enrollment into consideration. Are you adding in the choice kids? Because in my opinion, Desi doesn't use the choice kids in their data. They only use the ones that reside in town. And then I think for the region, and you can correct me if I'm wrong, but the region uses the rolling average of the four towns and the choice kids are not part of that. They would be totally separate. Um, so I'm just curious when you're doing the figures of it should be really be 6%. Is that taking in consideration just our town kids or is that including the choice kids too? >> Um I will I will get back to you on that. I have to go back to where I have that formula. Um and I and I'll say the the 5-year rolling average that's just for the assessment method.
And we collect, by the way, $300,000 in fees. We charge our families for students to play sports. Significant amounts of money. We are in aggregate the highest fee in athletics in the Tri-Valley. So, are we willing to increase fees and charge families with kids more? Uh those are questions the school committee's going to have to answer and ask uh in uh if an override doesn't pass. Now, I am a firm believer that structurally, if we can absorb it, that's what we should be doing because I also believe that it's free and appropriate education, athletics is part of that education. It's an extension of the classroom. Um and then this this ends reliance on school choice. No matter what, folks, I'm going to be clear, no matter what, we are reducing, so our first task this year, we are reducing our full-time equivalent employees by 13.2 staff members next year, no matter what.
Once you turn 18, this account will transfer will turn into a regular brokerage account and it will no longer be a teen investment account. Next is a custodial account. This is an account that is managed entirely by your parents, but the money inside of it belongs to you. And again, once you turn 18, this will turn into a regular brokerage account, which is basically just an account that you can use to invest in the market. Lastly is a Roth IRA for minor. IRA stands for individual retirement account. And this is an account that has tax exemptions because it's a meant for retirement. However, some drawbacks of this is that you have to wait to withdraw the money from this account until you're 59 and a half years old because this account is meant for retirement. And in addition to this, this might not be as big of a problem for us high schoolers, but there is limited amounts of money that you're allowed to contribute per year.
Another thing that threw a curveball at us this year was Mother Nature. We're about up about 190,000 above our budgeted forecast for energy, gas and electric. As you know, we've had a historic cold for about two months. We forecast over a three-year trend, previous three years weather had been pretty good. This year, Mother Nature wins. So, we had those two headwinds. So, we're going to look very closely at the next few months. Again, Mrs. Calabrese and Mr. Rhinefuss along with the staff, we've asked them to dot their eyes and cross their T's in regard to only spending on must-haves versus nice-to-haves and they've done a wonderful job with that. So, I want to commend them and I want to thank Mrs. Calabrese and Mr. Rhinefuss and the staff in regard to sharpening their pencils. It seems like they're always hearing from me, but this year I can't thank them enough.
I actually had a student that wore those, but she fell on them in PE and stabbed herself and had to go to the hospital. Yikes. Swear to all like but um yeah, she had to go and get stitches. I I was thinking the same thing like was wondering it too. Um that's why I put the three S's. I apologize. I just realized I interrupted you. You're fine. Um so I was just like is that something that we need to to to include like clothing that prohibits or promotes drugs or alcohol and then something with like unsafe items. So we tell our kids um like that they always need to consider like the three S's and the one is it's literally safety, school, and skin. Um and so the safety which is something that I feel like we also don't see in here and then um like the skin like if you're needing to protect your modesty, it's not appropriate for free dress days.
That's not for the to actual total kits. >> Yes. Right. Okay. Um just for clarification too my understanding is central administration includes HR, IT, um finance and the superintendent's office that th those four departments are all part of central administration. And then I haven't my another question I have is that I saw when I was going through the the documents that on one hand it says that the I ready IMATH the 19,000 20,000 whatever that charge was includes PD and another piece of information I saw that it doesn't include PD. So I was just curious which one it was because I saw conflicting um conflicting information about the PD piece on the I Ready and IMAP. >> Yep. Tanya, would you be able to answer that? >> All right. So, initially we had everything rolled in and then we took it out. So, the last document um if you notice the price was different.
Override passes or not, I'm not asking you as a community to fund those 13 positions. They're out of the budget. Okay? And that's critically important because a lot of times folks will have an override discussion and say, "Okay, now we're just going to pull these positions back in." I'm not doing that. We're not asking for that. We're trying to fix the problem. We're not trying to add these positions back in of $1.4 million is what they equate to. And then in another year say we can't afford those and now we have to lay them off or reduce staff in another year. I mentioned this um that $1.1 million moves back into um the actual budget as part of that 2.75, provides long-term you know, fiscal stability. It's just this is just another slide showing it. So, what does it mean though? And I talked about those 13.2 positions.
You're only allowed to contribute up to $7,500 per year. And once you turn 18, this account will also turn into a regular Roth IRA or IRA. Investing is how I can make waves for a better tomorrow. Thank you Jack for a very informative presentation on investing. Uh this concludes our period one uh presentations. So thank you very much. Heat. Heat. Heat. Heat. Heat. No. Oh, he's escorting your parents in. Okay. Morning everybody. If you could take your seats so we can get started. Please put away all your phones. I don't want to see any phones. >> Okay, Miss Custod, are you ready? Ready. Thank you. All right. Welcome. Uh, welcome to our 11th, yes I said 11th TEDx DHS event. The TEDex DHS club is thrilled to present to you this exciting event here at Dartmouth High School. This is an independently organized event. This year we will have a live audience and of course we will also be broadcast live stream via DHS TV media productions.
They they really took it to heart and we've done a good job of really only spending what we absolutely have to and that's really about the students or if there's required maintenance, if we got a leak, if we got an electrical issue, roof leak, stuff like that. So, we've really cut it down to the to the bare bones. One resolution I just like you to look at if I may, please, and I want to thank Mr. Sebastiano who's here today is on page 18, resolution 48. Mr. Sebastiano is in the new servers which you can explain a lot better than I can, but SHI is the organization that we work with, the company that we work with. Um again, they help us with the construction component, the hardware, the software. Essentially, we're upgrading the servers that was mentioned at number three school, number six school, and the middle school, and the high school.
But then school messaging, we say anything that goes against the school messaging that we are teaching you on campus would be an issue. Um, and so it's like you can't wear your like cookies thing. So, I do feel like it would be nice to have something that was like aligned in some way to um, things that don't promote like unsafe behaviors like that. So, I didn't know how to put it necessarily. Um, so that's why I just put like remember the three S's cuz you wanted to ask people about it, but I I'm leaning to where you're at that we add something like that. I I agree, too. I I guess my question would be does one does number one fit that? I I read number one that like um, it was talking more about like when we're responding to their behaviors, maintaining order to Cuz your three S's, in my opinion, I I love that.
We took out the um cost of PD. So, that's why it's broken down on that sheet. It does not include this and this part is free because I think at the time um you all were talking about the cost like the price of it. So just made sure you can see the bottom line of what the curriculum not the extra the extras in it were. >> So there's no just to clarify there's no PD on the I Ready IMath in this budget >> and the budget I'm I'm not sure if what's numbers on the budget book but on the document that you all um the question list. >> Yes. We have $19,266 and this is based on pre-proed enrollment numbers and that's what we have in the budget. >> Okay. >> Right. But it just in the budget it says it's for PD and I think on the sheet it says it's not.
You'll notice Mendez, we're losing three teachers at Mendez. Now, these are all retirement positions. So, these are positions that will impact the school. There will be bigger class sizes. There will be less opportunities for students. So, when I when you see a specials, think of computer class, think of uh PE, think of those music, band, etc. Those are those are positions of of folks who are retiring that we're not filling. Warren teacher, again, retirement. Nursing staff, we had a retirement. Science teacher at the high school, a retirement. We're not filling those positions. Am I sitting here saying, "Could we take those positions and and improve student learning?" I do. I think we could, absolutely. But is it the right thing to do from a fiscally responsible manner in in trying to stabilize where we are without asking this community for a $4 million override? The answer is yes.
Our theme this year is making waves for a better tomorrow. Now you may be wondering who this TED guy is. But realistically there is no TED guy, right? Instead TED is an acronym for technology, entertainment, and design. The TED organization has covered many ideas worth spreading in various fields of study. You will see the same diversity in the topics being presented to you here today. Before we begin, we would like to ask our audience to please be respectful of our presenters by keeping electronic devices silenced and refraining from talking during presentations. They have worked very very hard on these presentations. Please respect that. Our first presenter for period 2 is Taciana Dilva who will be presenting from chalk to smartboards. Taciana is a senior here at DHS and is a secondyear member of the TEDx DHS club who has gained a lot of confidence from her presentation last year and is enjoying public speaking.
Uh we expect them, Mr. Rypkema, the project to start this weekend. I will follow up with the subcontractor in regard to that, but I want to thank Mr. Sestanovich personally because he's really the lead in regard to everything IT. And when we're working on the budget, you recall our conversations and we were looking at all the line items, and one of the line items we said, "Please do not try to cut that if at all possible." Was information technology. Sorry, Frank, we did cut it, but we cut it far less than we originally thought we were going to have because again, the infrastructure, the information technology infrastructure is the lifeblood. That doesn't work, you know, we can't conduct business. So, I want to thank you personally, Frank. You're always there for us, not just this, just the in general in regard to the RV shell answering man in regard to this organization.