Budget & Override Forum (March 26th, 2026)

001Good evening everyone and welcome to the FY27 budget and override public forum for March 26th, 2026. Um, I'm also going to call the select board meeting to order cuz all five of us are here tonight. Um, I don't know if you want to open the meeting. >> committee to order. We have a quorum as well. Okay. So thank you to everyone uh who is here joining us either in town hall. Um, we also have a bunch of people joining us virtually on Zoom tonight. Um, this event is is being co-sponsored by both the select board and the school committee and um being recorded and live streamed by WACA tonight. Um, so thank you to our friends at at WACA for uh for being here this evening. Um, I also wanted to let you all know

002that we are recording this separately on Zoom. Um, mostly for the transcript because um the Q&A section which we'll talk about a little bit later, but um we want to make sure that we have captured all the questions and answers so we can um put it out on the web later on. So thank you. Um, I am Brandi Kensman from the select board and um I'll be moderating the the forum tonight. And um joining me, I just want to introduce the folks that are here at the table with me. Um, starting from everyone else's left is uh Jim Adams, the superintendent of Ashland public schools, Lori Tosti, the chair of school committee, Paul Kendall from school committee, uh Claudia Bennett from the select board, and our town manager Michael Herbert all the way over there.

003So, um I just want to do a little bit of housekeeping before we get things started. Um, so we've scheduled this forum for for 2 hours tonight. Um, we'll have brief presentations um by Mr. Adams and Mr. Herbert, um but the majority of the time is really um for us to hear from all of you. So, um we've um we have a ton of time for our questions and answers. There's been some questions that have been submitted online in advance, so thank you to everyone who has um submitted some questions. So we'll start with those and then we will open it up um to folks here in the room at town hall and also on Zoom for any questions or comments that people want to share. Um, to ensure that everyone has an opportunity to

004speak, we will uh limit everyone to 3 minutes each at the microphone. Uh if we have time after the first round and there's still questions, we are happy to have everyone come up and take a second round and um have another 3 minutes. So, sound good? >> [sighs and gasps] >> Okay. All right, let's get started. Um So, the agenda tonight, um first I'll I'll talk a little bit about where we are in the budget process and how we have gotten to this place that we are here tonight. Um, then I'll turn it over to Michael. Um, the town has always taken a very fiscally uh conservative approach to um to our finances and he will walk through ways that we've saved taxpayers um kind of millions of dollars over the years um whether it

005was uh through proactive changes we've made or uh programs that we've participated in or even um grants that we've received. Um, then he will talk through how your tax dollars are spent so you can understand a little bit about how that works. Um, and also just an understanding of what's really driving the costs that we're seeing and really the reason that we are all here tonight. Um then we will turn it over to Mr. Adams who will talk about the work that Ashland public schools has done internally um and the need really to um to restructure um the district for financial stability going forward. Um, and so then we will move on to to to Q&A. Okay. So, before we get into the numbers tonight, I just wanted to share um a quote from my

006colleague uh Claudia Bennett which I think was is is appropriate for this evening. Um, a strong connected community is built on in the everyday moments. Neighbors checking in on neighbors, shared spaces that bring us together, and local services and events that make it easy to belong. It's what keeps families supported, seniors less isolated, kids engaged, and volunteers showing up when it matters. When we invest in the places and programs that connect us, we're not funding extras, we're protecting the relationships and quality of life that make Ashland a place people are proud to come to call home. And I think that's really appropriate. I think um so Claudia is a a colleague of mine on the select board. She's also um a a retired educator in Ashland, um retired uh school principal from the Mindess Elementary.

007She's raised her family here in Ashland and they're raising their families here in Ashland. So, um it really I I thought that um you know, really as we begin tonight, it's a good reminder of some of our shared values as a community um and what makes Ashland just such a special place. And I think that's why all of us up here um and all of the other members of both school committee and and select board that are in the audience tonight um and all the people that work for the town of Ashland, that's why we serve the community. So, um okay. So now let's get into the numbers. Okay. So, where are we in the budget process? Um you know, I know that this is something that probably wasn't on a lot of people's radars

008um until pretty recently, but we've all been talking about this for a really long time. Um, in fact, I think this is probably been just over the horizon brewing um for at least the last couple years and we've talked about it as sort of something that we were seeing that was going to um come to a head at some point. So, just in the last year alone, um we have as a tri-board, which is select board, school committee, and finance committee, have met five times and really throughout that whole process we were trying to understand the issues, trying to find out what the solution is, um and also we were just gathering more information. Um we had a lot of projections, we had a lot of thoughts of what things were going to look like

009coming into this fiscal year, um but we needed some actual data. Um, one of the things we needed was the governor's budget to see where we landed on um on state aid from uh from a state perspective. We also needed to understand what the projected costs were were going to be, what they were going to come in at. Um, and of course like the needs. So, um as part of our typical budget process um on the municipal side and on the school side, both um both go through a whole process of of ascertaining the needs and making recommendations as to what um what we need for a budget for the upcoming fiscal year. Um and so, you know, the other part that we've also been been worried about is sort of what's happening on a

010bigger scale. What's happening with the federal government, how that might affect grants. Um, so we have been able to look at different options, we've been um looking at different scenarios, and things have kind of um come a little bit more clearer as the last couple months have gone on. So, we've received a lot of public feedback, we've had a lot of public meetings, our boards have had meetings as well. Um, and we've made some changes. So, um you know, we recognize that the um rising costs that we all face like in our own personal budgets have hit all of us. Um, we see it with um you know, our own health care costs, we see it with um at the grocery store with our bills, our crazy utility costs this last winter with gas and

011electricity. Um, you know, now the pain at the the gas pump. Like we know people are pinched. And so, we um really wanted to create um a solution that would meet the needs of the community, but would have the we would minimize the impact to our taxpayers as much as possible. So, things have evolved. So, um we'll talk a little bit about that tonight. So, where we did land is that um the the request that we're coming to the community with is an override request of Proposition 2 1/2, and we'll talk a little bit about that, too. Um for Ashland Public Schools of 2.75 million. And where that um it equates to approximately $428 uh of an annual average increase to an average um home price assessed value here in Ashland, which is about $737,000,

012just to kind of give you an idea of the the cost that we're um estimating. So, it estimates it it's it's approximately $36 a month for your average taxpayer. And then on the municipal side, there's um there's critical need on the municipal side as well. Um specifically for fire, for police, for DPW, for finance. And so, um initially we had planned to have that as part of the um three it it was at one point it was a 3.5 million-dollar budget gap. And when we had talked to the community, we knew that it was confusing the way that we were planning to Sorry, everything's blowing. Um move that we were going to utilize the money that was in our operating budget that initially um was set aside for the public safety building um debt, and

013we were going to move it out of our operating debt our operating expenses and our operating budget, that would be that would be right, and move it into excluded debt, which was going to add money to um everyone's It was going to impact everyone's taxes by another $100 approximately. Um instead this year, we decided that to simplify it and to um minimize the tax impact, we were going to utilize um our stabilization fund, which is our rainy day fund. And so, the 750,000 will will be um taken out of the the stabilization fund for just this year only, and then we will find a mechanism for um go on a go-forward basis. So, where are we? So, we are in the process of these community discussions. Um tonight's a really important night for this, and

014I'm really glad you are all here. Um because, you know, this is this is not just a discussion that is happening in Ashland. I don't know if you guys There was an article in the Boston Globe 2 days ago that is interesting. Um that there's like a record number of communities that are having these really tough discussions about overrides and about um the the budget challenges because everyone is facing, you know, there's there's 351 communities towns and towns and cities in in Massachusetts, and I guarantee all 351 are having the exact same conversations we are tonight. Um and challenges and how they how they manage those because the fixed costs have risen to the point of not being able to financially take on the burden that um >> [snorts] >> uh basically it's a it's

015it's creating a deficit for all communities. So, we are not alone in that. Um So, we are going to be having this discussion for the next 2 months, and this is I'm glad you guys are all here for this tonight. Um in preparation for town meeting, which is May 6th, and um and a ballot town election on May 19th. And so, the way an operational override works, it must pass both both town meeting and the ballot to move forward. So, um we're going to be having this discussion for the next the next couple months. So, with that, I'm going to stop sharing, and I'm going to turn it over to Michael for for his slides. Hopefully. All right, thank you. Can everybody hear me okay? Okay, we're good. Yeah. That's not where I wanted it.

016Talk amongst yourselves, folks. Get this done. Okay. Folks, as we're going through this, um Sorry, I just need to share. All right. Uh let's see. This doesn't seem to be working the way exactly the way I wanted it to. That's okay. Things hardly do do do they, folks? Not today's day and age, but um it's as Brandi said, I'd really like to welcome you here and thank you for coming here um and listening and participating in um this very, very important discussion for our community. For once, I have got the easiest job in the night. Um because I only have to do two things. First of all, I have to convince you that we are good stewards of your tax dollars, and we have been good stewards of of your taxpayer dollars. The second thing

017um is that I have to show you that this is a math problem, not a management problem. And so, I figured the best way to do this was not to take it from my words and take it from my staff's words or the elected officials. Um why don't we go to the independent audits? Why don't we go to agencies like S&P? Who come in and take a look at our books on behalf of other folks, other interested parties in our finances, and let's see what they have to say. Not what I have to say. You might have some issues with what I say. You might not necessarily believe it, and you know, that's your that's your prerogative. But it's going to be really, really hard, I think, to argue with people who are charged with

018making sure that we're not doing anything wrong on behalf of other folks who are investing tens of millions of dollars into this community. And so, I'm just going to give you a snapshot of that. Um we have saved the taxpayers millions of dollars, tens of millions of dollars over the years since we've been here. If you look at the independent audited financial statements. In fact, I'm just going to tell you about three. Um changing health insurance, moving to the Group Insurance Commission, and doing an energy savings performance contract. I won't necessarily get into detail, but we made a lot of energy efficiency improvements um that saved money. And then we actually financed those through competitive qualified energy conservation bonds, which save the town millions of dollars. Okay. Well, best-laid plans, folks. I was on a

019roll, too. I kind of felt good. That's okay. Make me sick, so I couldn't stand next to him. All right. >> [snorts] >> Thank you. Can everybody hear me I know everybody can hear me in here. I just want to make sure Can everybody hear me on Zoom? And just give everybody a Okay, I'm getting some thumbs up. Okay. So, yeah. So, just with three three initiatives, um we saved the taxpayers $16.3 million. Not only that, our town since 2013 has secured $32 million in grants, and that is very conservative. Very conservative. Now, a lot of those funds are restricted funds. You know, what does that mean, Michael? Restricted means that you can only use it for certain things, generally not operating expenses. And so, when people ask us, you know, gosh, you got a

020financial issue, why are you doing downtown? Why are you doing a sidewalk here? Why are you making all of these improvements? Folks, we're doing it with grant funds. We're doing it with other people's money, not yours, because they need to be made and they enhance our community. And so, the smart thing to do is use other people's money, not ours. So again, just with these two things, you're looking at saving taxpayers $48 million over the years. And again, that's very, very conservative. Again, folks, this isn't me saying it. This is the independent auditors. And you know, another another agency, and I mentioned it before, that comes in and and evaluates our finances, our Standard & Poor's. You might have heard of them. You know, S&P 500, all that good stuff. They do things they they

021rate municipalities' credit. You know, just like Equifax comes in and gives you a credit score and you get alerts every day um about something. Um we go to Standard & Poor's and they say, "Okay, if you want to go borrow money, we have to evaluate your credit on behalf of investors." And so, they come in and they look at everything, our management practices, um our economics, um our tax base. And this is what they came up with. So first of all, we we achieved AAA rating status in 2016. We jumped up three bond ratings in three years, from 2013 when I started as finance director to 2016. We went from double A to double A positive to double A plus to triple A. That saves taxpayers millions of dollars because, just like your credit score,

022the better rating, the better rate. Okay? And then they came in and they do these reports and we've got them online if you want to check them out. And this is what they said about our management practices. They said, you know, this is just a couple of quotes. Our financial practices are strong, well embedded, likely systematic. We've made it a culture. And then also, management has a record of outperforming the budget through good planning and tight expenditure controls. I didn't say that. These folks didn't say that. S&P said that. And so, that's great. Michael, what does that mean for the average taxpayer? What does that mean? Right? Good question. And before I go to the next slide and show you what this impact has been on your taxes, I want to let you know, I

023understand taxes have gone up a lot. And everybody looks at me now and they see, "Oh, town manager with the high salary, right? And he can easily afford this. And and so, what about us?" And most of you know my story, but I know I'm not going to get into it. But the thing is, folks, I wasn't always this way. I've been there. I know what it's like. I know what it's like to choose between food or paying your rent or paying your mortgage or paying your taxes. I know what it's like to wonder what the next day is going to look like financially, if you're going to have a roof over your head, literally. Literally. I remember being in my 20s helping my grandparents who didn't have much money talk to the pharmaceutical companies

024so they could get a lower health care or lower prescription cost so they could afford other things that they needed. They were actually too darn prideful to do it themselves. And I felt a lot of of happiness and warmth when I was able to help them. And that that helps drive me do what I do today. And that's nice, but what does that mean for you? Right? So let me show you. Oops. Sorry, this thing is a little slower than my usual. These are Ashland's tax bills compared to the region. Okay? Ashland's on the green line. The peers, again, in our region, and that's 17 other communities are on the yellow line. So, since 20 uh 16, when I started, um tax bills in this region have gone up 46%. This is the average single

025family tax bill. This is right from the Department of Revenue. Again, not what I'm saying. And so, we've gone up only 38% during that time. An 8% difference. You know, you look at that 2016 mark, the gap between Ashland and the regional average was only $1,300. Today, it's grown to 2,700. So, all that stuff I showed you in the other slide, what that means is that that line, that green line, goes up less slowly than everybody else. Or excuse me, more slowly. Thank you, Yolanda. I'm looking at you now Yolanda is like, "I don't think that's right." Thank you. More slowly. Um so that's how it impacts your taxes, folks. By the way, Jim, you said Google Slides is what you use? Oh, man. You got to show me some tricks here cuz I'm I'm

026having a hard time with this. And again, folks, this is the second thing I want to I want to point out and I think I I said it at the beginning. This is a math problem. It's not a management problem. And I'll put it in very as simple terms as I can. By law, our tax levy only goes up 2 and 1/2%. That's 1.4 million. Okay? Mandated health insurance costs. That's what we've negotiated with our employees. They go up 8.6% more than three times the the the 2.5%. $775,000. The retirement assessment goes up 8%. $350,000. The Keith Tech assessment goes up almost $400,000. It It went up a lot this year. Folks, these aren't choices. These are things we have to pay. And that adds up to the 2 and 1/2% increase. That's before we've

027added a fire or talked about funding a firefighter or a teacher or anything like that. We have just eaten up with things that we have no choice over, our 2 and 1/2% increase. Again, folks, it's math. It's just math. $1.4 million. Again, that increase. You take out all of our insurance, which is which is, you know, things like property insurance, the increase in that, $800,000. You subtract, again, employee retirement, the pension assessment, that's $352,000. And then Keith Tech, again, $400,000. It eats all of that up. We do see a little bit of relief with our debt service. That comes goes down $336,000. But again, when you net all of that out, it pretty much takes up all of that 2 and 1/2% increase. Again, before we talk about anything else, increase in subscription costs. Everybody

028knows what that looks like. Increase in fuel costs. Everybody knows what that looks like. We face it, too. The biggest irony in government is that when we need the money, you need the money, too. I understand that. We understand that. We understand this is a difficult conversation. But again, what we want to show you is that we have been good stewards of your of your money and that, again, this is a math problem. And so, [snorts] I'm going to leave it at that and and I will leave plenty of time for for questions. >> Michael, can you show the slide with the $100 bill with the money coming out of it? >> It's not on this one, the one I was able to pull pull up right now. Okay. So, um and what we will

029have, I should point out, we will have all of these up, I believe, on our um on our uh on our website. Um yes, we will have we will have all the slides. We'll have um a link to the recording of the meeting. And then we will also we'll talk about it later, but we will have Q&A. Um all the all the questions, all the answers um that have been submitted, we'll we'll post up on our website, so it's a resource for everybody. But and what Brandy is talking about, just for everybody's um information, is we actually took a $100 bill and broke it out. This is what you spend on debt service. This is what you spend on schools. This is what you spend on police and fire, right? And I think a good,

030you know, if you think about spending and what we spend, the biggest thing we spend our money on are our employees. And I So, on the municipal end of things, just uh to help you understand kind of what we're spending our money on. In 2007, we had 118.7 FTEs. That means full-time equivalent employees. So, we had one employee per 124 residents. We actually ended up laying off a little uh over seven FTEs during that year. And then in 2025, you know, that many years later, the town has grown by 4,000 people and we we 148.7 FTEs. Actually, that's one employee per 127 residents. We haven't really grown much at all, and I should say the growth in those employees, a lot of those are not on taxpayer funds. They, you know, you do pay for

031some of them through fees. Couple of them are paid through grants, but all of them pretty much are not in the general fund. Um that's because we've been good stewards of your money. So, Are we Are we ready to transition to to Jim? Um I just want to just make one more point. >> Okay. I just want to be be cognizant of the time. I want to make sure we have enough time for questions. I think that's fair enough. >> [snorts] >> Um Look, I I I'll just I'll keep it brief as much as I can. Um you know, I've been the town manager here for 10 years. I've been part of your finances for 13. In that time, we went from a double A bond rating to triple A, from rainy day reserves of

032five of below 5% to above 10%. From a library on its seventh year of state waivers to a fully accredited branch. From four firefighters per shift to six, able to handle two calls at once. We've built a new elementary school and a new public safety building, and we've documented over 16.3 million in budget savings across health insurance, bond financing, and energy contracts. We did all of this without a single operating override. Here's And that's what we're asking for, one operating override, the first one in over the first one we've asked for in over 12 years. And it's not because we failed, it's because we succeeded. And the cost of maintaining what it is that we built, I see everybody's heads nodding here, in a world of rising health insurance and rising pension, and rising regional

033costs, now exceeds what that prop two and a half increase can cover. This is something that we all built together, folks. And this is something that we're obligate Not obligated, but we should have a commitment to protect as well. So, I hope this has been helpful. Now I can transition, Brandy. How's that? Thank you, Michael. Mhm. Do you want to um unshare? Oh, there we go. Okay. All right. >> [snorts] >> So, good evening, everyone. And I'll just start by saying and recognizing the elephant in the room, which is the Ashland public schools, right? We're the we're the ones here before you talking about a $2.75 million override and what that can do for the community. And before I get into the slides, and I I won't belabor the the data that's in here, uh

034but I want to say the approach that that we have taken as a school committee, that I've taken as a superintendent, is really to look at our financial situation holistically and say, "How can we best fix a structural deficit that is going to exist year after year after year, and has done so since I've been superintendent for 13 years?" And what I'm trying to accomplish and what we're trying to accomplish is to fix this problem moving forward. So, instead of using one-time funds to pay for operating costs, which I'll get into in a little bit, making sure we have funds that are available for one-time expenses, that we have those funds. How do we do that? We have to fix the problem we have, and that problem is definitely a revenue problem. It's a revenue

035problem from the state. It's a revenue problem locally. And yes, I agree with Michael, it's very difficult to ask for for more money right now. I get that. What I'm trying to tell you is that I'm not adding positions. We're looking at this as a restructure an opportunity to ensure that in 5 years down the road, we're not having this conversation again. That's the challenge that that many communities are facing. When you see other communities have overrides every other year, they're not looking, in my opinion, and maybe they are, but they're not necessarily looking to fix the systemic problem that exists. 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

036I 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. So, when that rises, salaries tend to rise a little bit, too, in order to afford some of those costs. Uh we are

037looking 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,

038by the way. 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

039a $49 million organization. So, when we look at the town appropriation from FY26, we get about 44 486 from the town, from taxes. 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

040general 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 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

041operations 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. 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

042should 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. 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

043to 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'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

044those 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. We're We're doing I think we're taking the right approach. There are unfilled positions that we have in the budget, easy ones, right? Those are easy to say when when people say, "Are you Are you Are you really culling through your

045um your budget to ensure that it's really cleaned up, etc.?" I will stand by what we've done. Yes, we we go line item by line item. Chris Matthew, our director of finance is here. We go line item by line item. And we say, "Okay, can we reduce this?" Because that's the fiscally responsible thing to do for a community that's struggling financially. So then, on the other side, these are true reductions, meaning these are positions that are not retirements or unfilled positions. So, these three positions are positions that are being reduced. The conversation we've had, the school committee, if you want to go back and look at their their last meeting, th- those positions will actually, you know, hamper some of our um ability to do the the best job we can do for our students.

046We are definitely seeing more and more students uh come across uh in in into our community who have uh higher levels of need, whether it's socially, emotionally, educationally, academically. How are we going to provide that? And and two of them are administrative positions, right? And they're not in front of kids. It doesn't mean it's not going to um have a detrimental effect on families and kids. It it certainly will. But again, we believe this is the best approach to get that 2.75 where we need it to be. What are some of the drivers? And and I I don't want to spend a ton of time on this. Uh if you get online my budget book, uh it's it's there and it's really detailed. And I think for the most part we've gotten it to a

047point where I'm a former CPA, so I tend to look at this stuff and how can we put it in layman's terms so everyone can understand it? I think we've done that. I think it shows both of these um scenarios and and they're really the cause and effect of of one or the other. But look at our expenses and our trends. Transportation. And and we're going into a budget year right now where our our transportation costs, fuel costs, um leasing of of of buses, etc., are up. So, we have another negotiations coming. What will that do to our um our budget next year? I don't know. Um you can see how the distribution of of special education regular day cost of transportation over time, you know, we're almost 50/50 now. Uh we have we have

048many students. Uh we've built great programs in our system because we believe all of these all of the kids in this community are our kids. And if they can be a part of our system, we're going to do everything we can. It comes at a cost, for sure. But they're our kids. They're your kids. They're your community members. And for me, I look at this and say, "Okay, yeah, so we have to hire a vendor that has access to a van because we have a number of students in wheelchairs." That's costly. But those kids are thriving in the Ashland public schools. They need to be in our system, right? So So, there's certainly has been over time uh about a 50/50 ratio. This is just the data behind it if you want to go back

049and look at it um in terms of of the true cost of of each of these um it's really the one I'm going to stop for a second. Look at the FY25 and you see the revolving fund use. Now, again, we charge families to ride the bus. That's a tax on families who have kids. In this instance, this year alone, or FY25 last year, we spent $881,000 from the that revolving fund to offset transportation costs. So, in reality, that 881, go over to the regular day bus of 778, it's $1.5 million for the bus. It's a it's, you know, you have to keep this all in perspective here. It's it's pretty significant. Special education, there's always questions in the community and and we always want to be careful, right? When we're when we're talking about

050special education and general education costs because uh and I'm a I'm a father of a of a of a student who was on an IEP his entire career. I understand the the challenges uh in our community of of of having conversations about the true nature and the cost of special education versus general education classes. It's significant. And for those students who are who we can't who are who are so, you know, medically fragile that we can't supply education to them here and they have to go and and be educated at a private school at costs of $200,000, per child? That's the reality that we're living in and that that we're obligated to fund. So, you'll notice year over year, we had we had one year where our cost went down in FY21, but you can

051see that the actual increase when when Michael shows uh the conversation about, you know, the 2.5% and and you got health insurance that goes up eight. Well, we're looking at 12% next year, close to 14% increase in special education out of district costs for the same amount of students, by the way. It's not that the number of children are utilizing the service, it's the needs of our kids and we don't have control. The state allows uh a a different process for private schools to increase their rate. We've got some schools that are increasing their fees by 20 plus percent. We're responsible. Here's where I I always get like I I try to take a step back and think, "Damn, we do a really good job in this community." I this to me is a slide

052that says, "What's the value that you all and the and the folks who are watching online at home and have children who have been through the Ashland public schools and I will be clear. Yeah, there are ups and downs every day with our school system. There are some families who are happy. There are some parents who are not and there are some kids who are thriving. There are some we can do better. 100% that's public school. But guess what? We're about five $5200 lower than the average in the state of Massachusetts. We spend our state rank 361 of 395 districts, school districts. That's what we are. We're in the bottom of what we spend per child on education. The value of education in what students are getting when they walk out of this community is

053tremendous for what we're spending. End of discussion. It's not even a debate because you flip this in reverse and you go look at where we rank and we're in that top 10% of how we achieve. But we're in the bottom 5% of what we spend. It's great value. It's a catch-22 for me to show this slide. It really is, right? Because people are like, "Hey, damn, you guys do a good job for what you we spend." You're right. We do. But it's going to get harder and harder. That's my point. So here's the scenario that I think is really what what I'm driving at with trying to fix stability and I'm going on too long and I definitely want time to have conversations with folks. Revolving funds for those who are at home and here,

054revolving funds can only be utilized for very specific purposes. So if we charge a student to ride a bus, we can only use those fees that we receive to offset transportation costs, okay? Similarly with building rentals um and athletics. The key to this whole override and the the vision of the Ashland public schools and what we can do is this in red is this school choice number. We tuition kids into our district because people want to be here. They want to be in this district. And it's not significant when you talk about oh how much you get per child Jim. It's $5,000. That number hasn't changed in my 16 years here. But it's still $5,000. But you can build this revolving account up over time. So with an override passing go all the way to

055the far right FY end FY27 ending number, right? Is a balance of $1.9 million. That's what we'd have in that account. This this is what we're projecting. And that projection allows us to do a lot of things and I'm going to get to that in a second. But if we don't do this this is what happens. We're we're looking at by the end of FY28 and we'll use the the 3.25% for instance increase. School choice goes in the to a negative balance of 38,000. Because we have to use all those funds to cover salaries. The $1.1 million next year that we automatically have to add back in. We have eight eight educators counselors mainly who are part of our school choice um salaries. So it's coming. If we don't pass an override, it's coming. And

056and all I can tell you is when we get here these numbers mean layoffs, reductions. Not I've had great questions about the 13.2. They're still going away, remember? But what would it look like Jim if if if all of this goes away in 2 years? It's probably anywhere from 13 to 20 more educators. That's the reality. Because we are a people driven 79% of our costs are salaries. So why do I want to fix the problem? Why do I want to fix the school choice issue? Because we as a community, we don't have a structure set up that really uh and I try to think about this with your own property and your own house and it's really hard to do in tough times, but to set that money aside for you know, a a

057roofing project at your house. Uh a a car is damaged. These these expenses that occur every once in a while but are not, you know, that recurring cost that you're budgeting for. We have those. And this is just a little list. I have the whole list online. $14 million worth of lists if you will of deferred maintenance projects. If we have a boiler, say at the Pittaway school break doesn't function. Heating season's coming. My guess is the the community's going to probably want me to fix that boiler and have heat for the the the smallest kids we have in our district, right? Hopefully they'd want it at the high school too for the biggest kids. But uh my my my greater point is that we have we don't have that necessary flexibility. I can't just

058go to Michael. I can and he's going to say, "Jim, I don't have it either. Can I have $500,000 to fix it?" We don't have set up safety nets if you will. I'm looking just the fourth line down. The literacy program. We are looking at a new literacy program which is required to to be in compliance with the Department of Education. It's going to cost about $900,000. How do we fund that? For me, I look at it and say, "Simple." If we're not spending $1.1 million out of school choice for salaries which should be in the operations we now have flexibility to utilize those funds for truly one-time costs. It's it's a I'm try I'm making it real simple, but that's the reality. Um we're in the process and Michael and I just 2 days

059ago we're we're still working towards the Ashland public schools taking back if you will the the control of of the fields, the athletic fields in for the school system, right? The ones that belong to the schools. How do we how do we afford and fund uh taking care of those, the maintenance of those? How do we how do we ensure that our community, our youth sports can can work play on fields that are appropriate, that people aren't going to get hurt on? Um how do we So so it offers us opportunity. I guess that's my greater point. I'm a huge optimist. I know most of my staff will say you're not, but I am. Um last slide for me. Again, focus on the left. Structural stability. Athletics fully funded. School choice now it's available for

060for strategic needs. Not used to fund $1.1 million of salaries and heat and oil and operations which should be a part of the budget. And it's long-term and sustainable. You know, we we typically will run anywhere between a 3 and a 5% increase in our budget. That's typically if you go back over the years and and in my budget book you'll see I I calculate that. We we typically that's what we're looking at. But we can manage to that. Chris and I have these conversations all the time. We can manage to that 3.75 number that that we had agreed to years ago. We have to. But we can't unless we're able to to free up some from other funds. So that is really all I'm going to present because I prefer to have conversation about

061these things. I think it's um the challenge before us as a community is and I think where education itself um has done a poor job is we don't look long long-term. We don't look down range, right? We don't. We look at, "Okay, how do we fix today's problem today?" And worry next year about next year. I can tell you if we don't fix the problem now I will guarantee you I will come back and ask for an override next year. You may say, "No, Jim, we're not going to approve it next year either." I understand that. But my point is that number then will escalate to closer to $5 million. That's the reality. Because at some point it's either that or we we reduce our our employees. And what I'm telling you from the earlier

062is we've already done that. We're down to 2017 employment numbers. That's that's where we are. And our enrollment has risen and will continue to rise. That's it. Sorry. There we go. Off my soapbox. Okay. Thank you. Thank you, Jim. Thank you, Michael. Um so at this point we are going to um start the Q&A portion of our uh our our of our evening. Um so we did receive we had put out to the to the community the option to be able to submit questions in advance and we did receive 19 questions. Um what I'm going to do is I'm going to read through all of them. Um a lot of them have been answered by things that are that we discussed tonight, but um I want to make sure that everyone feels like their question

063has been been raised and addressed. Um what we are also going to do, um, kind of mentioned at the beginning, is we will be posting, um, written responses to all these questions, um, both the questions that we received in advance and then the questions being asked tonight on our, um, on the town's website. So, the town has created, um, a specific budget and override page. You can get to it by, um, the town of Ashland's homepage and there's a If you go into the news section, there's a there's a section There's a link to click to click to get to that, um, to that page and all of that will be on there. We also have links to Mr. Adams' budget book, the presentations, um, that he did to the school committee, plus, um, recording

064links to, uh, our tri-board meetings, too. So, there's lots of information there and we'll be adding more sort of as we kind of go along the next, um, 6 weeks. So, with that, um, I'm going to go just going to go ahead and just go down the list. Um, so, the first question that came through was, "Can the town respond with likely scenarios to occur if the override is voted down? What services and personnel would be affected and by what magnitude? This will provide a good reference point to base our vote on." So, um, I think I think Mr. Adams had answered that pretty clearly. Um, the scenario would be, um, that, you know, the 13.2 positions and that, um, this would be sort of potentially mitigating, um, further further, um, devastating reductions kind of

065in the future. Um, second question, "If passed, will some of the revenue raised from the override be used to make improvements to the town, such as implementing some of the suggestions in the town's long-term strategic plan or providing permanent fixes to critical needs, such as the shortfall in the town's water supply or is the override intended to simply sustain current services?" And, um, the answer is it is, um, to sustain level service. Period. Um, "I'm struggling as it as with my income. Sorry, I'm the aging middle class, which I get, um, struggling to pay taxes, utilities, food. I'm already skipping medications and doctor visits because I can't pay for them, um, because I can't pay for them, it should say. Um, where am I going to get the money to pay more? Where do I

066go for a personal override?" Um, so, this is a really important question. I think that, um, one of the things that we do as a community is that there are, um, senior exemptions that, um, I don't know, Michael, do you want to talk a little bit about about that briefly? Yeah, so, um, the town has a a number of, uh, programs that could be utilized by residents who are interested and qualified to offset or reduce their tax burden. So, the most prominent one is called the 41C and a half tax exemption, um, and for qualifying seniors and and you can find that, um, on the assessor's page, uh, there's an an age limit and also an income limit, not an asset limit, but an income limit. Um, we actually, uh, if you qualify for that,

067um, the deduction is actually a little over $1,100. Now, in 2016, that was only $500. We have consciously tried to in uh increase that each year, um, understanding that taxes are going up and that we've tried to help, um, help provide offsetting, uh, relief for those who would, um, who would qualify for it. One other program that's not very well known is a tax deferral program, um, and that allows a homeowner who qualifies to actually defer their taxes. Um, there is an interest rate associated with it and that eventually becomes a lien on the property. So, when you do sell the property, that does get paid. Clearly, that's, uh, that's a tool that some people could utilize if they wanted to, but, um, that's not as popular as the straight exemption. And also there's a

068there's a, um, trash abatement for seniors as well. >> Correct. So, thank you. >> lower cost. Yeah, correct. Um, okay. So, next question, um, we actually had two questions on this. Um, has the town considered allowing marijuana dispensaries again? Um, well, the answer to that is, um, we really can't answer that question tonight, um, and it's even if we could, we wouldn't it wouldn't be applicable to this year's budget cycle. So, um, but we can always look at things for the future. So, um, but we had two questions on that. Um, the next question is, "If 13 positions have to be eliminated in the school system, which ones are they? And if the override is not passed, um, there would be more positions eliminated, which ones are they?" So, Mr. Adams went through, um, all

069those positions and again, the slides will be up on on the website. Um, can you please provide more details about the Keefe Tech added costs? Take that, Jim. Sure. So, Keefe Tech, uh, yearly does their assessment. So, their assessment went up 4 percent for their their actual budget. With state law now, there's a adjustment in terms of enrollment numbers. Uh, we have the highest number of students we've had at Keefe uh, in a long time. So, we have 75 students. There's 17 more students, um, that is part of the budget process for Keefe than than we had in previous years. So, 17 more students equates to the $396,000 at 4 and 1/2% increase, uh, on the Keefe budget. Uh, it will stabilize. Uh, so, with the the passage of of the law last year, um,

070we we will not see we should not see another bump like this in the future. And I'm going to put a caveat on this, if if Keefe, uh, as they go through the building process of looking at a new building, uh, over at Keefe, that certainly will have an impact on on the Ashland community and other communities who send students to Keefe Tech. Thank you. Uh, the next question is, "Are proposed 40B developments projected to be revenue positive for the town's annual budget?" Um, and they said, "Please answer yes or no only." And I would say, um, depends. So, >> [laughter] >> I know. I know. Some days. So, just, um, in very brief cuz we're not talking about sort of future and growth and things here tonight, but, um, there is tax revenue that

071comes in when a when a, um, development comes online, we it's added into what's called new growth on our budget. Um, so, we do get tax revenue from those developments, um, but there is a trade-off. So, there is services that we then need to provide as a community and we need to be able to adjust to those needs. So, um, again, it depends. Um, the question is, "When do we get to vote yay or nay?" Again, the dates are May 6th at the town meeting and May 19th at the ballot, uh, town election. Um, they were also There was also a question about, um, uh, absentee ballots. So, what is the process for completing an absentee ballot, um, if they are not going to be here for the election? And they can go on the

072town clerk's website and, um, and apply for a, uh, an absentee ballot. There is also early voting. Thank you. Uh, which will be having happening in town hall. Um, I don't have the dates. I should have the dates. But, it's also on the clerk's website. Thank you, Paul. Um, I would say that one of the other things in this in this, um, question re- regarded, um, the May 6th date and I just wanted to make sure people are aware, town meeting is an in-person only, um, event. So, we have, um, open town meeting here in Ashland, not representative town meeting, which means, um, every voter can come to town meeting and vote with a If you haven't been to town meeting, um, you literally you raise a card to vote. Uh, but it is in-person.

073There is no virtual or hybrid option for for folks and there's no absentee ballots for for town meeting. So, you do have to show up in person. Okay, the next question is, um, regarding a pen- pension fund lag, is it underperforming investments, underfunding, why, or open that a optimistic actuarial assumptions? Um, Let me Yeah. Take Yeah. So, real quickly, Ashland, like many communities that are a little smaller, belong to a county retirement system. So, we don't administer our own pension fund. Um, and, uh, so, we don't have control over that and everything. We do that to save money, save on administrative costs. But, I believe, uh, in 2024, the last audit on the Middlesex County Retirement System, I think they had estimated 7.2% return. I believe they ended up with like a 9.4% return. Um,

074so, and their actuarial assumptions show that they're going to be funded, um, what I looked at today was actually 2036, fully funded at 2036. Okay. Thank you, Michael. Mhm. Um, there was a question about the benefits for seniors. Um, we had kind of talked about that with the um, this is about the the trash breaks and also the property tax break, which we discussed. Uh, scrolling, scrolling, scrolling. Um, there's a question about appendix one in your budget book, Jim. It says it it's a challenge to understand the table. Are the items listed here projects that are unplanned for? Is this table a list of projects already funded? Or are these items that would be covered with an override? If so, are they listed in priority order? I'll go backwards. No, they're not listed in priority

075order. Uh, these are estimated uh, projects that we need to have done at some point uh, in the future. Uh, and the the challenge is how do we fund them? So, sometimes at our meeting, we do debt service uh, to fund capital projects. Uh, and the process of the override is to allow us to have the school choice funds and building rental funds to be able to actually subsidize our capital program at the town level. So, that's the the the process. If we don't have an override and we don't have the flexibility to use those revolving funds, then we have to look to the town as a debt exclusion at some point. Okay. Thank you. Um, so question, if responsibility for fields and grounds maintenance is being shifted from the town to the schools, will

076the town also be providing funding to cover these added costs? And when school facilities are rented out, who gets that revenue? Want to talk a little bit about that? >> No, no, great question. So, there are two components to this. So, if someone currently rents the inside of of our facilities, the building themselves, uh, then the funding currently comes to the Ashland public schools, which helps offset the costs of custodial staff, um, maintenance staff, anyone who's in the building uh, for those um, events. 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

077public 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. Okay. Thank you. So, this is a multi multi-question question. Um, so what is the new growth

078for 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. Okay. Um,

079what 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

0802021 versus 2026? Give me 13 seconds. Okay. 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

081down 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. 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?

082Well, 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. 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

083our 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. Um, this year I think it's going to be a little bit more, but you know, that is really um, if my opinion, just my opinion, if if um, literally, if the bottom falls out of our budget and the state cuts things across the board and we end up with some a situation that you know, could be a worst-case scenario, we would probably utilize the stabilization fund as much as we could um, while still protecting the the the town. So, just

084you know, putting that out there. And I and I think that's a good point. We hear about the stabilization fund and we talk about going to it and utilizing it. Um, and it is such a great tool for us. Um, you know, one of the things I talked about is the fact that we've gone from two and a half million in reserves now to 8.1. We've done that um, specifically, we've grown that for two reasons. Number one, we want the best Jim, you're talking about a a roof, right? Rainy roof. I think there's a quote like the best time to fix a roof is when the sun is shining, right? And so, when times were good, what we did is we tried to buttress that stabilization fund um, so when we did hit some rougher

085times, we were able to utilize that. Um the problem is is it's still one-time funds because you can't guarantee you're going to put money into it the next time. So, the more you withdraw out of it and the more you structure your budget around part of that, the more precarious it gets because you might not have that revenue source next year. Eventually, it gets drained down just like the balance in your bank account. And um we did have one more question about um our um our fire and police basically um in regards to potentially uh you know, increased need if once these apartments come online and what that looks like. I think we kind of talked about that a bit. Um we really are not predicting yet [snorts] what what the impact is going to

086be and we're going to have to adjust to that. Yeah, and and I do think it's important to note because I think some people still think that because it's an apartment building, they wouldn't necessarily pay taxes. And no, the renters don't don't pay taxes to the town, but the owner of the property does. Okay. Um and there was one other question. I'm not quite sure about this, so maybe says, "Will any of the money be used for legal assistance for illegal immigrants similar to what Boston's trying to do?" And I would say I don't think that's applicable. No. So, I'm just Yeah. I think it's outlined how the money's going to be Yes. >> Yeah, I think it's I think Jim's been pretty clear. No. Okay. Um and that is all the questions that we

087had received in advance. So, um if folks want to um ask a question here tonight or make a comment, what we do ask is that folks online use the raise hand function. Um anybody that is here in the room that would like to speak, uh please feel free to come up to the to the podium and the microphone. Just introduce yourself and ask your question or or um comment. So. Is there anybody that would like to So, at my last job before I retired, Can you introduce yourself? >> Yeah, I'm sorry. Fred Shalhoub, live at Tidman Road. Um we we came up with a theme, which was make it visible, make it better. I applaud you for pulling the 1.1 million out and making it visible because it's been buried. I'm challenging the town for

088the same thing. You're going to burn 750 grand out of the uh basically what's a rainy day fund to fund operator. I expect that that 750 grand is a baseline you're going to build on next year also. So, at some point you're just kicking the can down the road. So, we're not making that visible. I mean, you are in a certain respect, but taking it off the agenda on the override is really kicking the can down the road and kind of um lessening its impact. So, that's a general comment. But, in turn along the lines of make it visible, make it better, I would challenge a few things where I think the town can do better in managing its budget. Okay. Number one, leaf and refuse pickup. We do it eight times in the spring,

089eight times in the fall. I see the waste management trucks spinning around our cul-de-sac and picking up nothing. Marlborough, because I pick up my sister-in-law's um leaves, you have one day to get it out there. One day in the spring, one day in the fall. And that's not people, that's something you've been negotiated with with waste management, right? So, that's that's it. I would also hope that the town takes a little bit more critical view with its road plowing. I know every You got accolades over these last storms, but I'm sorry. There are some things that were done that I just Maybe I spend too much time in my office working on the computer looking out the window. But, one of those storms, the um salt truck came by. It was 7° on my thermometer,

090which by the way, salt doesn't work under 10°. And then a half an hour later, the plows came by and plowed it all off. And the plows circled around. That was the one of the first big storm, probably plowing an inch inch and a half at a time. I know that plowing's very tough on trucks, so you would think the number of times you plow could reduce it all. So, I challenge you. Mhm. You say you're doing an awesome job managing to really ask your staff if they really digging in and understanding where their costs are and getting down to the bottom of it. Certainly, the waste pickup is just something that compare with other towns. See what else they do and benchmark that and align with them. Okay. I I think that's great feedback,

091sir, and I think um actually it your comment about the 750 and making it visible, uh I very much appreciate that because um that was a choice that we were kind of balancing. You know, I had initially, you know, put forward maybe a way we could build it into the operating budget and I think collectively the choice was made just looking at the burden that the tax burden to try to not make it as bad this year. I understand, but but likely, unless you do something to reduce your other expenses for those four departments, you're going to be back in 2 years asking for another override. And I think that will really make the public It would it would anger me that it's like, "Why didn't we just get to some of the way one

092time?" So. Anyways, I'm done. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you very much. Hi. Um Julie Nardone, 86 Elliot Street. Um an override is not going to solve the problem and the and that's evidenced by the fact that towns that do overrides have other overrides. Because once you do an override, you have more money, more salary, more people, and you just you just make your budget exponentially bigger. So, this is a system problem, as Jim said, and I think the only way to fix it, and I've said this before, is to have the state of Mass. split the income tax. Their budget has doubled since 2012. They've got plenty of money. They do not fund towns like other states, and we're a very rich state. So, I really think you should lobby them instead of us.

093They They're the ones with the money. Um and then two, I always see these comparisons across towns. You cannot compare across towns because the demographics are different and the income is different. Okay, so I was a researcher. You probably see me post and stuff. Once a researcher, always a researcher. So, today I went and I got 15 towns around us to get the median household income. And going from lower to higher, we're the fifth lowest. And in front of us are Framingham, Marlborough, Milford, and uh one other town, but they all have huge commercial. Mhm. So, the towns after us, Hopkinton is about two We're 127,000. Hopkinton's 201, Sherborn's 250, Medway's 1 1, I think, 79. I'm going to put I'm going to type this up and post tomorrow because honestly, I just feel like

094you're trying to get water from a stone. Okay? There are a lot of struggling people here. You might not be able to see them, but they're there. So, I know there's a lot of people that want to speak. Thank you. Julie, I just want to say I agree with you as far as what's happening on the state level. The system is broken. Um I think that that is a conversation that's happening at the state level. We We've We've raised that and um you know, we're part of the Mass. Municipal Association and they actually put out um a report this year that basically you know, states that that our towns are in crisis and um and it is that the system is broken. So, I I appreciate that comment a lot because >> [music] >> um

095it needs to we need to have the state um look at how they support the communities um because if if all the communities are having the same issues and we're not able to um fund basic our our basic education and our basic programs, the system is broken. So. Yeah, and Julie, to your point, actually that conversation is starting to ramp up a bit more across communities and I think you know, I I think some of the state laws, especially some of the more recent ones that have been implemented to maybe take a little power away or local control away from communities, I think you know, that and some of the budgetary stuff is really starting to get communities asking saying the same things. Yeah. Yeah. So. And can I just comment a little bit, too,

096Julie? With regard to like Chapter 70 funding and and schools being funded through the state, right now we're at the situation in Ashland where we're a hold harmless district, meaning we're not getting those huge chunks of Chapter 70 funding anymore. We get $75 a child is what we get. So, it's about 211, 220,000 dollars, somewhere around there. That's all we're getting in chapter 70. Last year we were in a similar situation. The challenge I I find here, especially uh in Massachusetts of of doing budgets, we're talking about this right now in March. We're not going to see a state budget until July. And as they go through their process, we're hoping, as they did last year, they moved it to $150 a child, right? So they increased it by another 200,000. That's the impact it

097would have on us. We don't get an opportunity until the fall town meeting to really recognize that revenue. We can't I Michael and I are really conservative when it comes to to the numbers that come out on uh in in February and March from the state. We have to be. I think it's the right thing approach. But typically, the state has kicked in uh a little extra in chapter 70, uh not so much in in municipal aid, but certainly in education they have. Thank you. I did see a hand online, but I don't see a hand up. There was. There was, but so if I'm just making sure that anyone that wants to uh make a comment online just to use the raise hand function. Oh, Leah, that's okay. Um I'm going to go ahead

098to to Leah. >> so that We are timing. Yep. Yep. Yep. Um Leah, if you want to go ahead and uh unmute yourself. If you can. Hopefully you can. We're working on it. There you go. Okay. Go ahead, Leah. Hi, can you hear me? Yes. Hi, Leah Suarez of 25 Valley Road. Um this isn't a question as much as it is a comment um to someone else's question earlier. Uh someone had asked if we had looked into uh revisiting the marijuana sales um and there wasn't too much of an answer to that, but I was going to say as uh part of the comprehensive plan committee, that is a part of the comprehensive plan to revisit it. Um I'm not saying that it will pass, it still has to go through town meeting, but I

099think discussions uh will happen in the next few years um related to that. Thank you, Leah. Jim. Come on up. Joan Gentry, 104 Road, um on the historic commission to speaking as an individual. Um first I want to thank you all for the um for the um presentations. I've listened to um the police and fire and DPW the other night, and I've listened to the school. And um in in all honesty, um the you know, I think that we are at a crossroads, and um I um I based on what I've heard so far, I'll probably vote for it. I'm not going to I'm not going to swear to it, but I'll try. Um but um I think that my bigger concern is looking down the road, and I know it was it's been mentioned

100a couple of times, is that with the projects that are coming on, we are going to be in really big trouble. And I think we just have to have a really good plan for that. So um that's just my comment that I think we really need to start planning way ahead for this. So thank you very much, all. Great. Thank you, Joan. Come on up. Anybody else? Can you you're Yep, you're okay. Can you go ahead and introduce yourself? Yeah, Deborah Weekly. I have a question about your sports field, the funding. The town was taking care of it before, so now you want to put it on the school side. So I don't really see the difference between who funds it, you know, except whose budget it comes out of. And if we know that

101it's been a problem, and I guess what has been the problem? I mean, I know we're trying to get more revenue out of it. Is it just that you're asking for the people who are operating the budget, that's where the money is coming from, is to who who's operating it, as opposed to somebody in the town managing the budget for it to the school funding it. And then I have some more questions. I guess more comments. The frustrating part for me, like tonight before coming to the meeting was I was trying to find a copy of the but proposed budget. Couldn't find it. I looked to the last I brought up the last meeting online, and I couldn't even read the slides online, they were all fuzzy. Even when I zoomed in. And my glasses

102didn't I don't need glasses for that. But I couldn't read it. So I was very very frustrated that I couldn't get a copy of the proposed budget so that I could have ask informed questions as to what were the specific dollar amounts that I was looking. Now I know that you've compared different years, but we can all spin it different ways as of this year I'm looking at it as opposed to this year. And you know, which year was I just would like I guess why isn't that posted to the website? Why aren't the teacher salaries the the town hall salaries? Why I can go online. I went to comparison for you, Michael. Sudbury, and I typed in salaries town manager. Boom, it popped up. It gave me 20 year 26, 27, and 28. I

103go to Ashland, I got nothing. Nothing. So why is it, that would be the first question, why is it that we are not posting these and instead asking the public to pay for these public records? So two questions I guess there. I can answer the first one about the fields. That's more appropriate for me. So we need to go back 15 years um when the turf fields were initially um implemented. And at that time there was a group called the Ashland Fields Management Group, and um Tony Schiavi was the was the town manager at the at the time, and at that point in time, the fields, although the school fields were in existence, there was a a conversation then about who should be responsible for collecting the revenue, booking the fields, non-Ashland public school events,

104if you will, right? And and then what would happen to those funds? So there was an enterprise fund set up at the town on the town side, not not the schools, not the revolving accounts, right? So over the course of time, um the intent back then, cuz I was around, uh the intent then was to to collect the the fees and then be able to replace the turf, etc. It doesn't materialize in terms of because at that point in time Hopkinton didn't have turf fields. Now they have a plethora of them, right? And many communities do as well. So our revenues that were generated then um and today do not um align with what they were thinking back then. However, uh the revenue that has been coming in for the fields uh has helped support

105some of the DPW um salaries as well, because they're the ones who are responsible, right? So what will happen, theoretically, and this is how it should work, is the Ashland public schools will collect the fees just for the Ashland public school properties. And then we would collect those and put them in our revolving, and then pay out the um if we So for instance, we have a custodial staff, maintenance staff currently assigned to fields in our athletic department. So that could help offset some of the cost there. Uh the the rentals. So the rental money comes into the the schools now, and will be distributed for school employees only for the fields. Does that make sense? Yeah, I guess I'd ask why hasn't that been done already. Great question. It should have been. But at

106one point we I didn't take control of it. I wasn't superintendent then. It was taken away from the schools. Okay. DPW, believe me, they don't want anything to do with the rental properties. Uh I don't blame them. Um but there has to be a mechanism, and there has to be a process, uh and that's one of the things we're doing now is pulling together procedures to ensure because what's happened, Ashland has blossomed, as you can see by the the Michael showed the slide, the number of residents, right? Our youth sports, 6 700 students playing youth soccer. Yeah. They don't have enough space. The comprehensive plan says there's not enough space. So what we're trying to do, what I'm trying to do from the school perspective, is think about, okay, we've got our Ashland public school

107athletics, and then we've got our community teams and and events. Before we even think about renting out to any other, we've got to take care of our people first. And so we're going through that process. I didn't have control of it. Um we're just working through, Michael and I've been working through details. Uh and Doug Small and and so we're working through it, and I'm hoping in 2 years we look back and say what a great move this was. Yeah. Yeah, Deborah, I think um so regarding the slides from the last presentation, I think all of the slides are up on the FY27 budget page. The new one that you just said was going to be posted tonight? So the um the website's already up, but we're going to add >> find it. So if

108you go to the main web page, the main town web page, and you go under like the news section is probably the easiest way to get to it. I can't just do a search. I have to go to a specific If I'm at the search bar right at the top, town of Ashland, Mhm. can I I can't I typed in fiscal year 27 proposed budget, and I got nothing. Our search is a little wonky, to be honest. >> under accounting finance? Yeah. Government? Okay. Or through the main page. I think the best way to fix this is to bug us. Right. Right. Yeah. Yeah. I'll raise my hand and I'm if you send me an email, contact me, I'll try to find it. >> And you're Paul? Yes. I'll I'll I'll bug Michael until and

109at some point Well, I hope it's sooner rather than later, so that we have time to go over this before May 6th. Yeah. So, I guess that's And any information we can get you, reach out and we'll It's painful for us, we'll get it there. Yeah, everything is in draft form at this point anyway. We haven't We've had So, there will be there will be lots of opportunity to talk about this. So, our website is very hard to navigate and I complain about it all the time and what I have found to be the most effective thing is to just do Google searches and frequently it'll take me to some place. >> tried those before, too. It's very hard. I mean, we we don't have a dedicated person and I think that that's part of

110the issue. We want to hire another person. >> [laughter] >> Deborah, your point is well taken. Okay, but with regards to the I mean, it's so the salaries and everything. Why aren't we transparent with that? Other towns list, I mean, it's public funds. We're paying you know, I mean, that sounds terrible. I would never say that to you. You know, if a policeman stopped me walking, "Hey, your salary." No, I would never say that. You know, it's definitely throw my ass in jail, but excuse me. >> [laughter] >> Deborah, I don't think they'd do that if you said that. I'm just saying. So, I'm just asking, are we going to do that and if not, why not? Okay. So, you know, I think if you go to our next request system, you can find the

111salaries there if you wanted to >> Another place. Oh, and fair fair enough, public records. >> [clears throat] >> I mean, we could we can put that up there just, you know, like a straight salary salary line. Is that what you're looking for? Yeah, where I mean, other towns and that I'm familiar with have listed out, here's all the teachers' salaries, okay? Here's your salary and all the town employees and it's listed by name. It shouldn't be a secret. I mean, I agree I agree I agree. And also um But I mean, this is an ongoing thing. It's not, you know, be updated annually with, you know, the contracts and everything like that, so that you can see where are we going? You know, you know, whatever. So, Good points. I do believe I know

112my contract's online and if you just go to town manager's contract, it'll it should take you right to that. Okay, I guess it's the verbage. Okay. [snorts] Okay. You feel like you've got a good Okay, but thank you. >> Thank you, nice to have you. Hello. Hi. Keith Ferguson, Old Country Path. Um I'm wondering if you can tell me if you know if cuts at the federal level have contributed to this at all and if so, how much and just how what percentage of my IRA should I direct that way? It's a significant percentage already, but I'm willing to up it if need be. Also, for Mr. Adams, if you could explain a little bit more about the the school choice money. I'm not don't quite follow what that is exactly and how that contributes

113to the current problem. Thank you. Sure. I I can hit both those. So, currently we fund five positions. Chris, is that right? Out of title one? Or three positions there out of title one. I'll use title one as a as a federal fund that we get, right? So, so we have three positions, three different schools and right now we we bring in just a couple hundred thousand dollars for title for federal >> [music] >> grant there, right? Or federal fund. We're anticipating that to be reduced by about 110,000. So, 50% of that. So, so we will have to then within our budget figure out how to take that 110,000 of loss. We won't know until the fall or July if that truly transpires or not. So, so we'll have to figure that out within our

114budget. But to answer your question on school choice, school choice is is I'm trying to keep it as simple as possible. Students from other communities who want to attend the Ashland public schools apply through a process if the town decides or the school committee decides year over year to allow school choice students in our district. And they don't have to and they can choose by grade level. So, in April I will actually do a presentation every year and say, "Okay, we can we can afford to open up 10 school choice seats, if you will, as at the freshman level at Ashland High School because we know 17 kids are going to Keith, right? So, we've got we've got a opportunity to add some students. You get $5,000 per child. So, it's $50,000. Assume all 10

115kids came. Doesn't happen. Our our our fill rate is less than 50%. So, you can open up 10, we may get 4.5 kids. No, five kids, right? And so those funds, however, it's the only revenue source that we have that can be used for any purpose under education. So, we can use it to to fix a field. We can use it to fund a salary. We can use it to pay for books. We can use it to pay for heat, etc. So, that's how school choice works. I will tell you this, in 2007, it was before I got here, the Ashland public schools, it was a it was a financial crisis then and what they did at that point in time was they cut out of the budget all supply and textbook lines. They've never

116returned. Here we are, 2026. They didn't return. They funded them through school choice. So, when the students come into our community, we're taking those funds and then distributing the funds to different schools. So, the Warren school gets $30,000 a year to pay for supplies or for books, similar to high school. So, that's how we utilize those funds and that's really what it is. Does that answer the question? Okay. Okay, great. Is there anybody else online that would like to ask a question? Please use the raise hand function on Zoom. And while we're waiting for that, we do have one more person at the podium. So, go ahead and introduce yourself. Jim Jones, Robert Road. Jim Adams, you've been great at the schools and I as a Warren schools, fantastic. Really appreciate that. Also got to

117say the police department, awesome awesome in town. I just had a question, what can we do to get more of the special needs kids that get booked out to private schools? Is there a way to create something to bring them back and would we save I think you mentioned 200,000 per student, right? So, I'll let you have it, but I just want to say we appreciate you, Jim Adams. Thank you, it's very kind of you. So, I I would say if you if you take an opportunity and this is online in the Ashland public schools um website. I have a Is it in this book? Should be in this book. We've built, since I've been superintendent, we've built numerous programs in our school system to bring students and keep students in our community. And because

118we do value and believe that we can do a better job with our students than sending them to a private school residential school or whatever it might be. There are some kids, we got to remember, there are only 32 kids that are going to different schools. Some of these students are actually students who are moving into our community and they've already been in an out of district placement. To when a child goes out of district, it's really difficult to to bring them back in. You really have to show that you've got a proper program, right? So, I can give a great example of a program we started two years ago. This is the third year now. It's our 18 to 22 program and we used to have all of our students, so we're obligated through

119federal law three to 22 years of age to educate our students on IEPs. So, we were like, "Wait a minute, we can do a better job." So, we created a program three years ago and town town meeting funded it. It's it's it's expensive for sure cuz you have staffing, you've got a vehicle, you've got paraprofessional support, you've got supplies, you got all sorts of things, right? So, we started out with three kids, Mike, and next year we're anticipating seven. And so so that alone, if if that just that that one program is saving hundreds of thousands of dollars for the Ashland public schools. The programs we've created, it's it's not really great math and Paul and I always have this conversation, but let's assume a student a special education student who could potentially be outplaced

120to a different setting because we couldn't meet their needs, that might be a student at $38,000 per pupil. Average cost of a student who is outplaced might be 80,000. So, you've got this this you know, $50,000 delta that we're saving every single student time, right? I estimate close to $10 million on a yearly over year over year basis the programs we've built. Now, that's a huge assumption, right? It's a assumption that every one of those kids would would would be outplaced. That's not the case. We know that. But even if it was half of it, $5 million year over year, it's pretty significant for the community. And we've invested in the in the the the community itself has supported that. It is in my book. Uh you'll see the programs that we've listed, all of

121the programs we have, the number of students who participate, and the estimated cost it would be uh if those students couldn't participate. Yeah. You might just want to add to that that, you know, I I retired before this program was implemented, but I was still there when you were planning for it. So, you know, I think that's key that there is planning that happens when you saw this need and what the potential, first of all, because it is the right thing to keep kids in our community, and then also the cost savings, and that that was being planned for for several years. >> Yeah. Jim, we talked I mean, you talked about that I think when we were we were just starting out together. Another thing I that I think is really important to note

122is that our charter school sending tuition has gone down I think a million bucks in the last 10 or 11 years. Because so many kids were actually leaving or going from Ashland public schools and wanting to go to charter schools. Um as the as the quality of the school system has developed over the years, what's happened is kids have parents have wanted to bring their kids back into the uh system. And so, we don't have to pay as much as a community to send them to charter schools. >> Right. So, we have we have I think I just kind of um 13 separate programs we've created internally serving 130 kids. Yeah. So, a lot of kids I think are back in the district. Um which also affects school choice as well, because school choice then

123you don't have as many seats available to get money in. Okay. Do you want to come on up? And can I just stand up and yell? No, you can't just stand up and yell. Come on over here. You are special, John. >> [laughter] >> Good evening. Thank you all for the presentation. It was very informative and I hope the answers to the questions that were asked were very helpful. Jim, I have a quick question. Um when it comes to school choice, the the funding that comes from is that is that state mandated or is that how is that $5,000 assessment made? Yeah, it's it's set by the state. Okay, so is if we needed to raise that figure, that would be something that we we need we would need to have our legislative representatives and

124bodies let them know that this is a not an accurate figure or is not a figure that it's helps supporting and maybe they need to refigure and we look at that and maybe increase that. Would that be beneficial or helpful at some point? >> Yeah, so what happens is remember that the choice number, say $5,000, if we send a student to say Holliston, it comes out of we get charged back the $5,000 right as a town. So, it's it's a wash one way or the other. The whole the whole goal should be the delta should always be in favor of the number of students who are coming in versus leaving, right? Um but yes, $5,000 is is not um you know, a a a good figure at this point in time. It's been that way

125for I don't know, I mean, 20 years, you know, at least. And the challenge is the funding at the state level needs to be revamped again. Paul talked about the Student Opportunity Act. What they didn't take into account was inflation. They didn't take it into account when they actually set up Student Opportunity Act. We saw a huge increase of $1.7 million in Chapter 70 number of times. Part of it was we had more students. They they broke out the the increments in terms of if you have an English language learner student, a student on an IEP, low-income student, all those things. So, when we're getting better at our data reporting, we're getting more funding. But we're maxed out now at $75 a kid. Okay. Thank you. By the way, I forgot to identify myself. Joe

126Magnani, 2 Apple Lane in Ashland. Thank you. Just in case you didn't know who I was. Thank you. Um so, we are coming up on 9:00 in just a few minutes. I just want to give one more opportunity for anyone to ask a final question. Come on up. Oh, be careful. Yeah, be careful. There's some wires there. Oh. You've been here two nights in a row, you know. >> [snorts] >> First of all, my name is Donna Shaw. I've been a resident of Ashland for 14 years and have never been happier, more welcoming, and uh content with what I see, what I live with, and what I experience. Um because I've been known to have the gift of gab, I apologize in advance because I put my thoughts down and I'd like to read it.

127I also want to thank you and let you know how much I appreciate the information you gave to us tonight because we can make informed decisions based on what we a lot of things that most people don't know and they don't understand and that brings them to a decision that may not be in the best interest of Ashland. Excuse me. One thing I believe people may be overlooking during these turbulent times is that it truly takes a village. Every one of us is facing challenges, holding different perspectives, holding um different ideas and desires for what we think Ashland should be doing, and we're asking a lot of questions because of the sacrifices we're going to be forced to make. At the same time, the federal government has withdrawn over millions, maybe even billions of dollars

128from Massachusetts alone. >> [snorts] >> Funding that was part of our community's budget. That loss doesn't disappear. It becomes part of our responsibility. Money that we have to find in order to maintain what we want and what our town should be looking like and what our lives should be experiencing. Our local officials are working diligently to navigate this crisis and lessen the impact that it might make. >> [snorts] >> Ashland has become such a sought-after community for a reason. It's [snorts] built on commitment, collaboration, and shared responsibility. Let's take a moment to support the people working on our behalf and come together as a community and I encourage that everyone vote yes. Thank you, Donna. Okay. Is there anyone else that has any last questions? Brenda, I just um would like to add something. >>

129Absolutely. >> Um you know, I just want to thank everybody for coming tonight and everybody who's at home watching and uh maybe on YouTube um that we really appreciate uh the input and the suggestions, the ideas, the questions. Uh we honestly do. We are all here because we are committed to this community and want it to be the best that it can be. Um Ev- Everybody has to make a decision. I can't make a decision for someone who is making choices, hard choices like we've heard, right? You have to make your own personal decision and um I don't think a person here would judge anyone for that. Um but we it is our responsibility to bring forward what we think is the best plan for the community and, you know, especially I think for our

130our youngest members of our community. Um so, that's what that's what we're trying to do. And we we want everybody to have all the information. We want um to respond and please don't hesitate to reach out to me or uh to any of us with questions and concerns and we will do our best to make sure that you have answers. And um you know, we just appreciate your support even if you can't vote yes. Thank you. Jim, do you have anything else you want to add? Okay. Is there anyone else that wants to add anything? >> Yeah, I just echo thank you for everybody who participated or listened in. Uh also, this isn't your only opportunity to get information. Uh You can all reach out to me. I I intentionally didn't go into data and

131everything tonight, but we tried to be brief with with a lot of things that are complicated and and hard to understand. And uh this isn't your only bite at the apple. It's not, "Hey, listen to a 30-minute presentation and and walk away understanding municipal and school financing." Uh that's that's an impossibility. Uh feel free to reach out. Uh we will have other opportunities to get more information. I have all the data you're going to want and and lots you don't want with schools. Happy to share with anybody. Uh and I know these can be intimidating to talk and be recorded and and everything like that. It's fine. Reach out. I'm happy to do it one-on-one, small groups, or whatever. Uh we want you to be educated. We want you to know the information so you

132can make your best decision. Yeah. And likewise, and I think this will go directly to Deborah's point. Um So, our budget document will be out next at the end by the end of next week. We have to wait until it all gets settled before we can put up put a budget together. And so, that's what we'll be doing. And then also, um we'll continuously drop more information just about the context, you know, looking over the years um over the course of April and May as well. We'll be doing that um on a pretty steady cadence in addition to the budget document as well. Okay. Lori, do you have anything you want to add? Um thank you everybody for coming. Um and and I'm not offering Jim up without his permission, but I heard him say

133earlier if if anybody feels that their questions weren't answered about any of the school information or we didn't cover something that you want to know more about, um he's available We're all available to answer your questions, but sometimes um Jim's got the best handle on the budget book and would be happy to um as well as myself and all of my colleagues. Um we've been at this for a while. It's a very difficult conversation for all of us for a lot of reasons. But at the end of the day, you know, we want strong schools. We want strong services. Um we want strong public safety. We want the roads to be good. It's and it's just going to take a lot of effort and sacrifice from all of us to get there. So, Yeah. Takes

134a village. So, thank you for your time tonight. And I will I will say um our and we're happy to answer any questions that you might have as well. Um our our team our management finance team is relatively new, um but we will um we will certainly meet with you. And if we don't have the answer right away, we'll get it to you. Yeah. And feel free um I'll offer myself up to Feel free to reach out to me. You can email me [email protected]. Um or any literally any of us. Um so, I just want to thank everybody as well for um for joining us tonight and for asking such really good questions and engaging with us because we know that this is difficult. We know this is a big ask and we don't approach

135an operational override lightly at all. Um and so, you know, this is as Paul said, what this is sort of the beginning of the conversation. Um look for opportunities for an info session or um an opportunity for, you know, select board has office hours. Come talk to us about the budget. Come talk to us about your questions. If we can't answer it, we we know who can, so we will direct those questions. Um just a reminder that um our website is going to have the the slides from tonight plus um the link from the recording from from WACA plus um the Q&A. And um and if any other questions come in, we're happy to add them to the website cuz it's, you know, um we will get them answered and and get them up. So,

136um Again, the dates to remember for all of this, uh May 6th is town meeting. May 19th is town election. Make sure you're registered to vote. Um because that is the key to being able to vote. So, um and with that, I just say thanks and have a really great night. Oh, we do have to adjourn. Motion Motion to adjourn select board. We are in session. And we vote. All in favor. Aye. Thank you. Okay. All right. Thank you all. Have a great night.