And Lizzy feels proud. Cuz Lizzy McTizzy knows one thing is true. Look, she made it there in time for the cake, didn't she? To go to the party, you have to be you. So, she's just being herself. She goes, "I don't care if I have different shoes on my feet. That's who I am. And my friends will accept me." Isn't that kind of a fun rhyming story? Lizzy McTizzy and the busy dizzy day. All right, I have another story for you today called Pig the Pug. Now, have you ever seen this character before? Pig is a dog and is the kind of dog that he is is a pug and there's a whole bunch of books about Pig the Pug and he has all kinds of adventures and it's written by Aaron Blley and this story is about Pig the Pug and how he always wants to be the winner.
It's it's not about there's no value judgment. I want information. But it's perceived as some kind of attack or threat, right? And so exactly. So that that would be nice to have a conversation with town hall about that perspective, but as as far as like worth ethic and value, I I feel like that is great and it I think the shift lies in that how you perceive how you perceive the questioning, right? It's no one saying you're doing a bad job. We're it's information, right? And the website would be a would be um a good place to make it easier to get information. Put more on the website, which means the public would not have to ask as much. >> Right. Yeah, I mean, I've had this conversation if a staff out you can make your jobs easier if we're just put the information on the website so people don't have to ask.
Are you like that with your friends when you're playing games? Do you always have to win or are you okay with not winning? It's about having fun with your friends, isn't it? Well, let's see how Pug does playing games with his friends. And it looks like he has a medal here with a one on it. Maybe he came in first place. Isn't he a fun looking character? And I think it's interesting that the author chose the name Pig for the dog Pug. Pig came first. Here we go. Pig the pug winner. Here he is standing up on the podium here being the first place winner. Hey was a pug and I'm sorry to say if he didn't come first it would ruin his day. Oh, he had to be the winner every time. Yes, Pig was a winner. He just had to win and nothing would stop him.
And I also want to talk about this notion of curiosity because I mean, I was an extraordinarily curious child as a lot of child are and I managed to take my with me, which I think's good. And I think the whole notion of education is about cultivating curiosity, but then I feel like when I'm curious, it is not when I got received. So I feel like and that's actually one of our other topics, questioning contradictory messages that we're not there yet, but it's like you say education's important and then people exhibit those things and then they're basically told shut up and sit down. So I think we need to work on that and uh we haven't been doing that. Um see these these topics are all starting to they're all like related to each other. So let's move on to the next one and we'll just keep going.
or oh where to begin. He going to show you all the times that he had to win. Believe it or not, he was quite hard to beat. And the reason was simple. Yes, Pig was a cheat. Look at this. See him using his leg to hold his friend back so he can cross the finish line first. Is that being a good sport or a good friend? But if he did lose, he'd throw a pink fit. He'd scream, he'd cry, and he just wouldn't quit. He'd sobb and he'd sulk with this quivering chin to you gave in and said to him, "Okay, you win." So, he's trying to be a good friend to make his make pig feel better and said, "All right, you can win." And then look what Pig does. But as soon as you said it, he'd clap and he'd stamp and he'd rub it in loudly that he was the champ.
So this one's like super duper exciting. It's called understanding bond ratings because you hear a lot of towns, especially our town, we got a triple A bond rating, it means everything's great, uh finances are awesome, uh it's the world's just incredible because of this rating. So um I there is a group called called Strong Towns. It's called Strong Towns. And I found this really amazing article and we've both read it and it's called bond ratings are for investors, not taxpayers. >> that's like the number one thing to remember and I think it's fine that we publicize we're triple A. I've I've noticed that Ashland it could be almost copy paste from any town. They all publicize it. Well. Right. Look at what we did. One thing that's interesting is the actual rating um metric. Yeah. I I have found published for other towns. I found an old one on Ashland website, but the most current I didn't.
Haha, I won. I won. Is that being a good sport, a good friend? Pig really wanted to win. Trevor would say to him, "Let's just have fun." But Pig would reply, "It ain't fun till I've won." So they're playing hard here. And Pig wants to be the winner. So one night at supper, Pig shouted with glee, "Who can eat faster?" "I bet it's me." "Here they have their food. Who's going to eat their food fastest?" "Trevor said shy. I don't want to race. But Pig had yelled, "Go!" and was stuffing his face. He doesn't choke. He wolf down his food. He gobbled his kibble. His face was a wash with biscuits and dribble. He chomped on three sausages, all of them whoppers. Then he munched through his doggy treats, nashing his choppers. He swallowed it all in a minute or less. But something went wrong.
>> Yes. >> And those those are pretty telling, right? It's only three or four pages, but you know, it it does um maybe if you read between the lines, doesn't say everything's perfectly rosy either. So, I that goes back with the curiosity. There's nothing wrong with us touting that we have a triple A bond rating. I think there is saying like that's in danger over if if we don't tax ourselves more. Yeah. >> Right. Because we we have a surp- a surp- or they say we have a deficit or we actually have a surplus and it's, you know, anywhere from 1.5 million to 2.5 million and as the budget gets bigger, it gets bigger. And I brought this up at one of these early override meetings and I was told, "Well, we do have a surplus, but we have to keep it for the bond rating." So, in my mind, that's like like nonsensical.
Do you know? Can you guess what do you think's going to happen? Think he might choke. Throw up. Oh my. Let's see what happens. Because he was busy stuffing his hole. Pig didn't notice. He swallowed his bowl. Oh no. Are we supposed to eat our bowl or our plates that our food is on? Doesn't get sick. What's going to happen? Lucky for Pig, Trevor knew what to do. He squeezed out the bowl before Pig could turn blue or get sick, right? But Pig didn't thank him. He just said, "I win." So he was more worried about winning than almost choking on his bowl or thanking his friend for saving him. What kind of friend is that? Look at his eyes. Then the bowl bounced right back. So it hit the ceiling, came right back. Oh no. What do you think's going to happen? Is it gonna go back in pugs in pig's mouth and knock pig in the bin?
Um Well, Julie, and then and then just to talk real numbers, I mean, we actually when you talk OPEB, that's like high 48 50, over 50 million dollars. We are not in great shape financially, right? So, so, you're taking a slice of it to to we say we're in good shape and we get this bond rating, AAA, and we have a surplus, but we really don't. I mean, as a town, there's some serious issues, right, to look at. Yeah, I And what was interesting about the Can I say this? This This is the letter. It's called the ratings direct and it was about Ashland. It said that we had a high debt load per capita. Yeah. And I mean, above and beyond this override, there's like a 14, 15 million of projects that weren't And if you read in here, they you know, they started taking roofs, I don't know, around 2014.
Knocked him in the trash bin. Do you think that served him right for not being kind friend? These days it's different. I'm happy to say pig's not the winner each time that they play. He plays to have fun and his tamper temper tantrums have ceased. Cease means to end. They've stopped. Yes, Trevor can win now. That's nice. He's letting his friend Trevor can win now. Well, sometimes at least. Can you see Pig here? He's playing the game, but it looks like he's hiding some cards here. So, is he cheating? Looks like pig still has some learning to do when he's playing games with his friends. I hope you can just have fun with your friends and play. And I hope you can be a good loser. Be a happy winner, but also be a good loser and just be happy for your friend if they won.
Those used to be paid for out of the operating budget. Those became debt exclusions and even those feasibility studies. So, we've been taking on thing, we haven't been raising taxes. It's ludicrous cuz we've been taking on more in these debt exclusions. Um and I too, I went I went to the state DOR website. You can see all the towns and their ratings. Um 75 towns have AAA. Uh 89 towns have double A plus. And then 43 towns have double A. So, I I I added that up. It's like two 206 out of 351 towns are in the A's. So, that's Isn't that more than half? 206 into 351. That's more than half of the towns. >> Well, and this is an example of more information is better. If you if you say it's going to cost us more in bond, like put the real put some real facts.
So, don't forget you can find other books about Pig the Pug at the library when you go and maybe your parents or the librarian can help you find some other books if you enjoyed this character. So, I hope you enjoyed some of these fun books today. They were rhyming books. Did you hear those words that kind of sound the same at the end? But I don't know which one did you like the best. Did you like Buffalo Fluffle or did you like Lizzy McTizzy and the Busy Dizzy Day or did you like Pig the Pug winner? All fun stories. So, don't forget to go to your library and get some fun books and keep reading. And I will look forward to seeing you next time on Calling All Kids for some fun stories. Thanks for joining me today. We'll see you next time. Bye-bye.
What are we bonding and how much is it going to cost? Yeah. So, if it if we drop to a What would make us drop to a double A, right? I don't know. And if we did, what what is the interest rate difference? Yeah, speak. And again, think this is very clear. This is for investors, not taxpayers, not residents. The whole purpose of the triple A bond profile is are you going to pay the investors back? It doesn't say anything about us, our quality of life, or none of that. It's totally reduced to can you pay it back? Um and uh this uh segues into the next one. Well, it's related. Questioning contradictory messages. So, and I think we talked about this a little bit last time. We have been hearing nonstop, we need new growth, we need new growth, we need new growth. Uh you have been I it's on one of these papers.
Um we've been embracing slow growth or anti-growth, which I don't know how anyone can say that. We're one of the most densest towns in Metro West. Um so, then we were told more recently, well, you need an override because there's been so much growth that they they need it for the services. Okay, you told us that we didn't have growth. Then you told us we needed growth for your budget. Now, we're told you need an override because the growth is taxing the budget. Um did you want to say something before I read this? Well, the a certain amount of residents have been for decades mentioning that that the try so >> yeah. So, the goal would be to increase commercial who does not use as much in services as residential. And we've talked about this community, in fact, that was part of having an economic development um person, but I don't think we've been provided data to say does that work and how have we done it?
And I I don't know if we've had any Are there any other ideas that we're missing about getting more commercial, right? Like probably because um I haven't seen I don't know. Someone mentioned like a community had their own their own um fiber optic network that then they could charge other people to use. Now, I that maybe that's not practical in actual. I'm just throwing out real examples that other communities have used to generate revenue. So, And we're always talking about generating our revenue instead of looking at I mean, I believe we're um we get the budget and we just add on the old stuff, which means all these stratified it's like stratified layers of things that you might not be doing anymore, but they're still in there. So, can I also I think this goes under contradictory uh messages saying, you know, we're we're bound by 2 and 1/2 and all these I think the latest message was like Keefe Tech and insurance and one other thing, you know, eats up a huge portion of that, but that I have not seen anything that accounts for we also have increased assessments.
So, our budget has been going up more than 2 and 1/2%. And I I would just feel like having that real information would be super helpful. It feels like I I'm not sure why we get partial. And I I think it's probably just a blind spot of people again doing their best to say I need more money. >> Yeah. But it isn't your best when you have partial information. And I don't think it's your best when you're actually adding positions but but not really many many ways I think could be if you talk to the community belt tightening. Yeah, I I think you really hit on something that's important. As far as I'm concerned, all I've been given is a plate of abstractions. I don't know what's on this plate. I don't know what I'm supposed to be eating. Is it meat? Is it vegetables?
Is it Is it what is this? I mean, I don't know because everything's an abstraction. And I want to talk about Keefe Tech because we've been told there was a graph with four little thingies on it. Like graph X on the graphic. And one of them was the Keefe Tech. There's it's this year it's 1. I don't know. It It was It was 378 or 380,000 more than last year. And oh my god, so I went back. I just happened to have this stuff in my drawer. And I was going through some stuff and I pulled something out and I was like Keefe Tech was 1.7 million in 2014. This current amount is less than that. So, but that's already been baked into the budget back in 2014. So, I think to say that this Keefe Tech and making weird comments about it like oh, we should cut them and give money to the the other schools.
I don't get it. But it's like we're being told that this is such a big thing when it's already in the budget. And if you look at the budget, they're in included debt, which is inside and not debt excluded. That came down. I think it was 330,000, 340,000. So, we're not being told that the budget came actually down. It's in those parentheses. Um so, this whole thing about Keith Tech is just this weird windy stuff blowing around. It just doesn't even mean anything. So, and I think that goes along with that. I think mentioned it before, partial information like I that there was a budget um kind of booklet published saying it was independent. And it was published by the town manager, which I would not call independent. Now, I agree there was citations for independent data in the report. >> Yeah. But I I don't think most people would call a report by the town manager independent.
Do you? I I don't. Um I I just think like for the reason we started this show, we basically get one perspective and we're told this is the gospel truth and anyone who doesn't uh embrace this as the gospel truth is uh just kidding. I'm Oh, and I I That's really not what democracy's all about. It's about I think we have a duty to be questioning. Your civic duty is to question your government for yourself, for everyone else, and get everybody engaged. There's one thing I want to read here. So, uh based on what we were just talking, uh our manager uh writes uh a lot of articles about his experience as a manager and there was one about Ashland's triple A rating, how strategic financial management continues to earn S&P's highest confidence despite recent challenges. So, I'm reading through it and it's all about how great the triple A is, but then I get to this part.