Han Hanman >> Anuma. Thank you. Data Corp, 197 Main Street, Ashland, Mass 01721. A public hearing will be held on this matter on Wednesday, April 29th, 2026 at 7:15. Persons wishing to be heard on this matter are invited to attend the public hearing in person or by logging into the Zoom meeting platform. Interested parties who are unable to attend the hearing may submit written comments to the select board's office town hall Ashland Mass 01721 101 Main Street or by emailing Susan Robby at srobyashlandmass.com signed by me Josephi as chair I could take a vote to open the hearing or we just open up the hearing as is. I'll make a motion to open the hearing. >> Second. >> All those in favor? >> I I That's 30 and two absent. >> Those that are here for the meeting, if you would like to come up and represent yourself, please come to the uh platform.
Um and so, that transfer happens on Article 3. Any questions associated with that? Yes, ma'am. Is that capital or is that expense? Um so, with the special education stabilization fund, excuse me, the question is is would that money go towards capital-related items or more operating expenses? This money goes towards operating expenses. The the special education stabilization fund. So, when you hear me saying that you can take this field funding that's in the other department that's expense. >> So the question is is could you and and please correct me if I'm wrong, could you offset that with the 200 that we just talked about with capital? Potentially you could except then you wouldn't be able to make the capital expenses capital purchases necessary to maintain the fields. See, you'd be making a choice of one over the other if I understand your your your question correctly.
Turned you down a little. I'm trying to Don't touch Don't touch my thing. What are you doing? Can't even hear myself anymore, Cam. I just did. Your volume is just low. >> Check. All right. You're amplified in some of it, so I was just trying to I was [snorts] just messing with it and you came in and just Turned it back. Un- un-messed with it. >> Yeah. Don't do that. All right. Well, we got a good game here. It's a little chilly this Wednesday. Yeah, really chilly from the uh sidelines I'd say. Yeah, it's 52° right now here in Dover. Feels like 46. I'd say it almost feels like colder. Yeah, it is 46. It's brutal. And we got a game tomorrow. Uh start time is 5:45. This April's feeling a lot like March. Yeah. A little chilly. Not the spring weather I I'm not used to right now.
Where did that come in? Was it a blip in the map? Was it just that grade or was it some of the structures we put in place? One of which was run by Miss Grant who's sitting back here. She ran an SAT academy on Saturdays that tutored kids. So we really think and the data that she has uh shown us especially this year as well too has shown the students that attended multiple uh sessions if not all of them had significant bumps in their practice. So we're thinking that's one of the things that plus some of the ways that we are turning over what we do in the classroom as well to try to get that to stay up. Um number of chronically absent students we've dropped it. We were actually highlighted by the state of Connecticut for our drop. Uh what it is this year, I don't think we're going to be highlighted.
Again, you're a policy making body, and also appraisal. So, your most important role in appraisal is actually coming up, and that's your superintendent evaluation. When we talk about your role in appraisal, that is your main way that you have of appraisal. I will carry out my responsibility not to administer the schools, but together with my fellow board members to see that they are well run. If you take NJ SBA training, you'll hear this over and over and over again. You don't run the schools, you make sure that they are well run. Your superintendent runs the schools, and you your role is oversight. I will recognize that authority rests with the board of education and will make no personal promises nor take any private action that may compromise the board. And that's another thing that you'll hear over and over and over is that your authority is when you are sitting at the board table in a quorum with your fellow board members, and this is the only time that you can act and you act together as a board by voting.
This budget will support all of all of our academic, co-curricular and athletic programs along with allowing us to meet all of our state mandates. So I wanted to talk a little bit and and reflect on this year's goals. Before you move on, can I just ask you Of course. How does that pie graph for upcoming year in terms of the expenditures compare to prior years in terms of the percentage of the It's actually been pretty consistent. I think the highest was the health benefits and that cost. Everything else stayed the 12% for um I can't And how about tuition? Does it still stay the same amount in the pie? even with that increase? >> Even with that increase it it's still good. And then that 200 that 200k you said in July, we find out about that, but that's pretty much a certainty. Yes. Well, it could be it could it be dramatically higher or dramatically lower than No, I say it's So, what they do is they look at the are the number of our students were placed in in-class resource sections, and they don't tell like they don't bill us for that in July because they're still building high school schedules, kids schedules may change.
Look at Mittens sitting on top of Penelope. She's not quite sure what to make of Mittens. In Penelope's room, Mittens made himself very comfortable. Mittens, you can sleep down here on the floor. But where did he go? He's sleeping right in the middle of her bed. Is she going to have to sleep on the floor now? It was a crowded night in the room, up the stairs and down the hall, in Penelope's room. Can you see Mittens there sleeping with Penelope in the bed? They just barely fit. Does your pet sleep in bed with you? The next morning, Mittens woke Penelope with a surprise from the garden. Oh, no. Looks like he found some wild animal. Then, he wouldn't eat his breakfast. It's called Mammoth Munch. He didn't like that too much. But, he would eat everything else, like the trash and Penelope's toys and Penelope's supper.
I'm to the uh podium platform. >> Good evening. And if you would identify yourself, please. >> Sure. Good evening. My name is Jackson Christian. I'm an attorney at Megaludus and Gauis. And I'm here on behalf of the applicant which is Honand Dada Corp. And also here on behalf of the applicant are Neil Patel who is the president, treasurer, secretary and director of the applicant and then also Puja Patel is here and she is the proposed manager of record for the store. >> Okay, great. Thank you. Good evening. Thank you for being here. >> Thank you. >> And you also have a gentleman out back who has a vested interest in this uh hearing as well, I would assume. Right. On behalf of the seller, Mr. Goldberg, >> I didn't recognize you with that. Looks good. I wish. [laughter] >> Go ahead, sir. >> Sure. So, I have a brief outline of what's going on here if you want me to go over that.
Okay. Enterprise, it was an enterprise fund. Yes. Correct. So you can't transfer it uh from this fund to the fields because it's dedicated to special education costs. The special education stabilization fund. Correct. Fields budget is sitting um in a fields enterprise fund right now, correct. We can't transfer money from an enterprise fund to a general fund department like the schools. Yeah, finally I finally understood the question. That was my fault. So, okay. Thank you. Um Okay, so that brings us to the budget FY 27 budget. Okay. Also, I just want to make sure any So, I didn't realize we had people over Zoom, and I just want to give these people an opportunity Looks like Adam and Beth an opportunity to ask questions if they had it as well. And I'm So, Catherine is going to start sharing her screen. So, Article 4 is the um the budget uh for the next fiscal year.
It's like what What happened to spring? Last year I feel like it was winter up until like summer real quick. Yeah, I know, right? Even the flowers didn't know what to do. I don't know. Well, we had some some little flowers out um after the 14th and they got frozen. Yeah. It's like what? Yep. What kind of cruel joke is that? All right. Ball is up. Olson grabs it. Olson to Sachs. Sachs back to Schneider. Schneider good pass to Williams and That's a goal. >> Yeah, wow, nice. The quick bounce in and out of the net right there. Yeah, Ursuline's probably like what is going on right now? Yeah, I mean they're a private school out of Dedham. So I don't know how often they actually come and see the Raiders play. But was there in for a day. >> I'm going to ask Sienna something.
Uh because we're kind of back up as soon as we um you know said yes, we did it. You know, we didn't take our foot off the gas and saying we still need to work on that, but that it's creeped back up to where we almost were before. So, we're working very hard to bring that down. Our graduation rate, the four-year cohort, uh got another bump this year that came out from 80% to 83%. Um, so we're we're we're trending in the right direction. Never as fast as as we all would like it to, but pinpointing what's causing these to rise is what we're working on now and how can we support those and um make them wider throughout Danbury High School. I'm going to talk about uh what we did this year to amplify our student voice in themies is we started our ambassador program where we had a bunch of students that came in before school started in August and took them into the black box and did our ambassador training with them which was um you know a offshoot of what they do in Nashville.
I will refuse to surrender my independent judgment to special interest or partisan political groups, or to use the schools for personal gain or the gain of friends. I will hold confidential all matters pertaining to the schools which, if disclosed, would needlessly injure individuals or the schools, and all other matters I will provide accurate information that and in concert with my fellow board members interpret to the staff the aspirations of the community or its school. We always stress confidentiality. What happens in executive staff session session stays in executive session. I you know one who was actually my field service rep, she used to say you can tell your cat, you can tell your dog, don't tell anybody what goes on in executive session, especially things that have to do with students. Students are protected under FERPA and other federal privacy laws and staff obviously personnel have very strong privacy protections.
Um but this year we did ask for that the enrollment in all of those so we would kind of know what's coming in July. Um and so, you know, we the ICR sections are paid for separately on top of the gen ed on top of that 23,000. So, you know, we we know because we asked earlier this year uh what we're expecting that that bill to be for that portion of the tuition. We get the tuition bill for the gen ed students per student. We get the enrollment adjustment, whether it's up or down. We must have been pretty close for it to only be 24,000. It's been in the past about 100. And then like Stacy said, this is the first time that we asked. In the past, this has always been a surprise. So, this is the largest increase for the ICR. I've seen.
"You never really liked baked beans anyway." said mother. And no one was quite sure what had happened to the nice lady from down the street. "Has anyone seen Mrs. Phillips today? I was supposed to take her to the airport." said father. Oh, no. I hope Mittens didn't do anything that he wasn't supposed to. After all that Mittens got an upset tummy. Luckily, he knew how to use the litter box. Oh, my. And he preferred the bathtub. You understand that? He went to the bathroom in the bathtub instead of his litter box. The truth was Mittens made everything harder. Sleeping Look what's going on in the bed. He's taking up all the room. Getting dressed "Mom, Mittens has buried all my underwear in the backyard again." Oh, he is a mischief maker, isn't he? Getting ready for school He didn't want Penelope to leave, so he was playing tug-of-war with her backpack.
>> If you would, please. >> Sure. So, as I said, my name is Jackson Christian. I'm here on behalf of the applicant, which is Hanamunda Corp. So, Neil Patel, he formed Hanamunda Corp to purchase the liquor license and the business assets from Ashlin Public Market, Inc., which does businesses Main Street Wine and Spirits here in Ashland at 197 Main Street. So when they purchase the store, you know, most things are basically going to stay the same. It's going to have the same name, same floor plan and everything like that. It's just going to be under new management and ownership. So when they purchase the store, Puja Patel is going to be the manager of record and she's gone through the training to be tip certified and she's familiar with the rules and regulations for serving alcohol in Massachusetts. So she's prepared to do that safely and responsibly.
Um And so, Catherine's pulled it up on the screen. So, just to explain what you're seeing here, um so, the budget uh obviously a very, very big number once you roll it up, but it's made up of different expense accounts. Uh it's made up of different departments. It's made up of different items that we have to pay for. Um just like uh things like uh health insurance, pension assessments, other types of insurances as well. So, it's not just departmental expenditures. And so, this budget um again, it it takes into account the override that's on the ballot, which is 2.75 million that goes towards the Ashland Public Schools. Um And so, I will hone in on that first of all. So, that is about um that is about a a quarter of the way up the page from the bottom. You'll see that uh org number in the left, 0130.
Is Ursuline sound so familiar? Is that like a character in a Disney movie or something? Ursula. Yeah. Which one was that? I mean I I think she has. I don't know. She I don't know. Uh she's very picky. She only wants to watch what she wants to watch. Ursuline moving forward. This is number 19 with it. Gave it to number 20. 21 that was. 22 with it. Yep. They're working it around pretty well. Up the pass on that one. Quickly scooped up by Kramer. Kramer, good juke there, dishing it off to Dolly. Dolly with the good stick protection right now. Gets a pass off to Spalding. Waverly Passes off to Williams. Williams going on that far side, passes to Schneider. Schneider over to Motley. Motley to Hartnett up to Olson. They're working the ball around pretty well right now. Spalding has it. to Motley. Motley looking for an option.
Uh and these students went through a pretty rigorous uh process to get there. It wasn't just a volunteer. You had to be nominated by an academy director after you showed and filled out the application. So filling out the application is sometimes a little bit difficult for our students. They don't want to do it. So that showed interest. From there, they went into an interview process and were selected to be the ambassadors. Now these are the students as we get rolling here. If any board members had any interactions or coming into our schools for tours, generally they're the ones that'll show everyone around. Uh we train them a lot on their presentation skills and we've talked to them about the talking points of theirmies and we let them go. We bought these awesome blazers that you'll see we all have. Uh the kids have them. They've been great with it and we're getting a lot of use as ourmies in the Northeast are becoming more and more popular and other places in Connecticut are looking to model what we're doing.
So, you always want to be mindful of that and very respectful of confidentiality. I will vote to appoint the best qualified personnel available after consideration of the recommendation of the chief administrative officer. That's your superintendent. Again, you always notice on your agenda all personnel action comes at the recommendation superintendent because all of the employees report to your superintendent. I will support and protect school personnel in the proper performance of their duties. And this is another one we talk about a lot. I will refer all complaints to the chief administrative officer and will act on the complaints at public meetings only after failure of an administrative solution. And if you're a parent board member or board member in a smaller town, I was a board member in a small town, even if you're a board member in a larger district, the people know that you're a board member, they will approach you.
We had like 3 years it's been decreasing, but the capital fund the maintenance fund, what's the balance on that? I don't know like Uh before the 145, it was about 400 something. I'd have to look exactly, but >> So, like and there's no replenishment >> touched it. There's no replenishment going into that? Every year when there's the surplus at the end of the year, I say, "Okay, this much goes to capital reserve, this much goes to maintenance." So, it has been replenished each year. And it's called maintenance, but it doesn't have to be used specifically for maintenance or it doesn't? >> It does. It was the capital we used for the boiler or something. Like, the maintenance would be if we could fix that or fix something else, maintain. Sure. All right. So, I'd like to just reflect back on our district goals for this year then kind of give you a sense of how um you know, we progressed with those, but also how the budget continues to support the goals that we set for ourselves.