These things can be caused by migration, colonialism, and war. These are the three main reasons languages develop. Some of the ways that have some of the examples of ways this has happened in the past is through the Haitian Revolution and the Trail of Tears. During the Haitian Revolution, African slaves were on were sent to French territory in the Caribbean. this after the um liberation of Haiti, Haitian Creole became the standard language there and because of this a brand new dialect developed and this may seem like a good thing which it is but not all of them were with the Trail of Tears being very negative. Due to the Trail of Tears, many indigenous languages were lost due to the migration and this is not a good thing. As we learn new languages, we should pay special respect to the tradition, food, and culture of the places that we are borrowing them from.
But Mickey has her hand up and probably can add more uh clarification if there's something missing for you. >> Hi Mickey. >> Hi. Sorry. >> Okay. If if it does happen to be that it transfers to Pelum July 1st, then we would need I think the extra 6,000 that you're talking about would have to be um making sure we have an administrative assistant throughout the summer because right now we don't. We only have a couple of weeks. Um, and I don't know how, you know, I think Marquita is that person and she works maybe one week into July. Um, so that's where the challenge becomes. I do think that having it separate can be hard on Pelum. Um, I'm just going to go out on a limb and say that. Um because people can choose Pelum as a second choice if if they have their heart set on something in Ammerst as a first choice.
Currently, through the FY June 30th of this year of '26, the town has been responsible for uh, receiving revenues for exterior field for the fields, right? Even including Ashland public school fields. And town fields. Starting in July 1, uh, the revenue will come to the Ashland public schools for Ashland public school fields only. And that those funds are what will be utilized to offset costs to maintain uh, and uh, ensure that that we have proper um, and Michael talked about this at his meeting the other night, uh, staffing in order to to mow the fields, to line the fields, uh, etc. Um, we have great collaboration with all of the Ashland youth organizations who put in tens of thousands of dollars uh, to ensure our fields are actually um, usable and and uh, but that's where the money will come. It'll come into the schools starting July 1 and then distributed to uh, the employees and or equipment, whatever it might be to to keep the fields um, working appropriately.
And when we are on social media, that is one of the main ways that we find new experiences. But we should be careful when indulging in these so that we do not participate in cultural rebranding. Cultural rebranding is when we simplify or change a traditional aspect of a culture to fit our local preferences. This can be especially seen in social media. As you can see, there are much many different things that have been culturally rebranded, such as blanket dumplings for one and cowboy caviar. These may seem harmless now, but over time this can cause the culture and language to be forgotten. Like when you're looking at the blanket dumpling trend that's currently on Tik Tok, most people don't even know the original name, which is Schumai. While participating in these, we should be careful to make sure we pay homage to the actual names because once we start to change our perspective, we can often say things that we don't mean, such as the quote here, I'm going to need you to stay off my for you page eating all this crazy stuff.
Um but if we're moving separate, I think it would be great for Pelum to have like encourage people to apply both to Pelum and Ammerst if they're kind of in between Ammerst or Pelum. Does that make sense? >> Mickey, can I ask? So what you're saying is right now if somebody gets the application it has both Ammerst and Pelum and people can have a first choice and a second choice they can yeah they can choose one two three and four um right now um next year I think it'll go down to three because of the com combining of the two schools. Oh, okay. >> Um, but yeah, they used to label which one they wanted first, second, and third. So, we did get some school choice kiddos where Pelum was not their first choice, >> but because they didn't get into their first choice, they opted to come to Pelum.
Okay. Thank you. So, this is a multi multi-question question. Um, so what is the new growth for FY26 and forecasted for FY27? Let's start with that. Okay. So, at FY26, we finished with and I'm going to look at Don, our assessor, 727,000 in new growth. Okay. Um, and we're forecasting 900,000 for FY27. Okay. Thank you. The next part of that question is um, what is the anticipated increase in um, police, fire, and DPW calls once the six proposed projects are completed? I don't know if we've done any analysis on that. >> Um, no. I mean, but I think it's it's fair to say that we do anticipate them going up um, in in in our in history like with Sears and and you know, [snorts] we'll see as the Asher, you know, continues to fill, you know, that does generate a significant amount of calls both for police and fire.
This can cause the cultural item to be have stereotypes and negative connotations attached to it. And this makes people's first identity or perspective on the food a negative one. I've ga gathered some quotes here that talk about their experiences with this with one student at the top talking about certain trends they've seen on Tik Tok such as brothy rice, a Chinese time in my life, and the ube Starbucks misprononunciation. These things can make people upset because their cultures are being changed and or negatively impacted by it. And another one is one that we are all accustomed to, the Portuguese feast, with this one student saying that our feasts aren't as much about appreciating our culture to people our age and is now seen as more in a party. When these traditions are seen as something that can be easily discarded, it can change the perspective that we personally have on it.
>> That's interesting piece of information. I had some more questions. Um, let me just see. Mickey, was that all? >> Um, yeah, I'm happy to answer other questions if >> Okay, thank you. Thank you for being here tonight, >> Tanya. >> Go ahead. >> When I I had I had a few questions kind of relevant here that got got off the rail. Um Tanya, I think you might be the most knowledgeable on this and I also think that some of this is under Marta, so thank you for filling in as much as you're able to. Um but I have some concern about when we're talking about things like registration and outreach. Um in my professional field, when we talk about outreach, we really make sure that the people doing outreach have marketing and communications professional skills. Um my understanding is that in many school districts that is also how outreach is run.
Okay. Um, what would it cost to increase the police and fire by an additional person each in addition to the current proposal? Okay. So, for a police officer, you you know, to bring one on, you're looking at it about 100k. So, when you start thinking about, you know, salaries, um, educational benefits, outfitting one, sending one to the academy, the training, it's about 100k right there. Um, firefighters are a little bit less, you know, between like 80 and 90. Um, again, starting [snorts] out, you got to outfit them, you know, just the gear itself can you know, is uh, Keith, you're here. What, 10 grand just the gear? 12 grand right now. Yeah. I mean, this is like serious equipment. Um, on the school side, what was the full-time staff numbers in 2021 versus 2026? And the enrollment 2021 versus 2026? Give me 13 seconds. Okay.
And don't think that people of foreign cultures or different languages do not want to share their language or culture. They just want it to be respected in a way where everybody has a nice experience. Some other quotes I've gotten here from different DHS students are ones with one student wanting to share their stories in mythology of Nea, Wukong, and Changi. And another quote from a DHS student wanting to share a more personal matter to their lives with them talking about their mom's love for traditional food and how her her cooking and baking were very influential to her and she would love to share it. Sharing culture is a very important thing that has been happening for generations. But recently there's been a lot of appropriation of these cultures where we're changing them and not giving credit to the people of those that culture. We want to appre we want to participate in culture appreciation not appropriation.
it are the people that are in charge of outreach at for Ammerst for the for how choice and registration have been done until now including now um folks with some comm skills and is that something we would risk losing by putting that on Palum's admin support person who I don't believe that that's her area of expertise. So I I don't know everyone's >> sure >> but we do like the comms Seth's on now does work with that. Um but I'm not sure how that would go if you switched it like >> either way Seth is a central office employee and 4% of his um >> salary at this point is charged. So, he would certainly be able to assist with pushing out of information that he already does for all three districts. >> Okay. Um, that just feels relevant as we're as we're >> and and I'm sorry, I didn't mean to use the name.
Uh, 2021 um, was uh, they wanted the the staffing >> Staffing and enrollment. That's 2021, it was 383.9. Uh, enrollment um, give me a second on that. Historical. I knew this would be a good question, so I should have had it up. In 2021 was uh, 2700 students, 2713. Okay. Okay. In 2026, that what they're asking now? Mhm. Uh, enrollment was uh, is 2,886 students. So, 100 and 73 more students. Uh, and FTEs um, are 360. 0.6. Because of the years that were chosen to ask, I'm also going to share the slide because Sure. 2021 was also the Come back COVID. >> Yeah. Yeah. Right. This Yeah. So, this was student enrollment uh, over that period of time. >> Yeah. Uh, while I did go go go down to uh, almost 2700, that was a dip because of COVID >> Right. and the different choices that were made by families during Uh, but this is the enrollment trend.
Now I've talked about all the logistics and research and facts about it. I want to offer some things that I personally love to use to find new languages and cultures. And the first one I will be talking about is music with its influence in society especially in groups as K-pop, regatone and Bollywood. So the first thing I want to talk about is the K-pop aspect with the group Twice a Korean-based girl group with nine members. They mix Korean pop and um English pop to make a nice mix between the two cultures. When they speak Korean and English in their songs, it is very easy to pick up on certain words that are repeated multiple times, such as the title of the song or just basic phrases that are said. Another group I would like to talk about is BTS. BTS is a Korean-based boy group that is very popular here in the States, if not one of the biggest ones.
Um, he's our climate and media specialist. >> Thank you. Yeah, that's helpful context to share. Um, I may have lost track of my last question and I >> Let let me go to um William and then we'll come back to you when you when you're ready, William. >> Um, so I was just going to ask, do we know if because I I don't know this like I don't know if Pelum ever maxes out their choice seats. Um, but I guess I would say does Ammerst max out their choice seats? Do we know >> by grade level in each place? >> I don't know the exact per grade level, but yes, they sometimes max out >> just because I think that if right right now it's easy because you go to one place and you can check off the box for, you know, Ammerst and Palum.
Um, and then this is our FTEs over that same time. Yeah. It's going down significantly. And and and and these slides Yeah. Okay. Thank you. Um, the next question, in addition to a potentially successful income tax reduction ballot question, federal funding uncertainties, the increasing cost of living in Massachusetts in general, voter frustration, Massachusetts is starting to experience an out-migration of high-wealth individuals and families. Assuming a perfect storm and a state budget deteriorating beyond its current fiscal challenges, how would the math work if the override amount is insufficient to bridge Ashland's fiscal situation? And would you come back to the taxpayers for an FY28 fix? Well, the only override we're asking for in this scenario is for education, right? So, the quick answer is no, we would not be looking to come back in FY28 um, for additional funding for this override for for the school perspective.
They have had multiple promotion promotions with places like McDonald's or appearing in movies or even having their own toy line. BTS takes a lot from American culture such as rap, rock, and pop. And with all these different styles of music that they participate in, it is very easy to get dragged into the K-pop scene due to its familiarity. The next genre I would like to talk about is regatone. With the recent Super Bowl halftime show of Bad Bunny, many Americans were introduced to the world of regatone. Bad Bunny mixes a lot of traditional Puerto Rican music with American R&B and rap. Bad Bunny's influence is also very easily to get into due to the beat and the rhythm of his songs. You do not necessarily need to know the language to vibe with the music. Another regatone artist I would like to talk about is Daddy Yenki.
Certainly if you know wherever these families are residing at, if they do not want to stay at their home school, I would assume that they probably would still go to Ammerst and then drive up the street to Palum and fill out the forms or maybe they're online. I don't I don't know. But >> it's it is there is online. Um but it's current where let's say the kindergarten this year was maxed out for Ammerst and then students came to Pelum as I think Nikki was trying to explain the second choice or their default choice um for it and then if let's say the seat opens up in Ammeris sometimes they go back to Amoris because that was their first choice and Mickey I'm not sure if your hand >> still or again >> I can um answer the question about whether we max out. In certain grades, we definitely max out.
I'm not I can't speak for Michael and what it might look like from a operations of of um, general government. Yeah, and there's so many variables that could be out there. I mean, we have expenses that we won't know uh, what those are going to be like health insurance until later in the year. We have no idea what's happening at the federal government level as well. Nor do they. I'm sorry. Well, fair enough. Uh, but um, yeah, let's put it this way. If we could actually predict that, we would have factored that into our planning this year. Right. Okay. Thank you. Um, just also worth mentioning is that we do have a stabilization fund that is really like our rainy day fund and used for emergency purposes. Um, we're going to be tapping into that this year um, as we do every year pretty much to balance our budget.
He is very influential for millennials and Gen Z alike being often seen in the party scene or just at hangouts. His take on the Latin culture and slang is also very prevalent and we can easily see that through his music and connect with it. And lastly, the last form of music I would like to talk about is Bollywood with one of my first person personal favorites Singh. He mixes um Hindi Pakistani traditional music and R&B alike to make a very nice mix between the two. This makes his music if you are not too keen on regular Bollywood music, it makes it very easy to listen to due to its slow nature and relaxed bass. Now I would like to talk about television. Oh, sorry. I would like to talk about the global lens of Katsai. Katai is a new hit girl group that offers a multitude of different languages and cultures with each girl having their own unique ethnic um backgrounds.
Um it in the older grades we often are have either maxed out or are already maxed out. Um this year was a little bit of an anonym I can't say it. >> anomaly. um in that we didn't fill first grade and kindergarten like we have in the past. Um but we have filled out all the other upper grades. So let me see if I can just summarize. So there are a couple of questions about how we want to proceed with the budget. One is do we want to ask the town for additional money? Do we want to present a budget that is asking for some additional funds? Um I guess the other is do we want to keep the 6,000 in the budget or do we want to take that out? Does that sort of summarize where we are at this point in time? Okay.