001Good evening everybody. Welcome to our school committee meeting. It's October 22nd, 2025. We start each meeting reading our vision statement. The Ashlin Public Schools strives to be a model district that creates a culture of inclusivity for our diverse students and staff. who feel safe and supported are empowered with the academic and social emotional skills to pursue their chosen path and embrace their roles as positive contributors to local and global communities. This meeting is being recorded by WACA cable TV. Our order of business this evening includes our opening procedures, agenda review and adoption. will have time for public participation. And the reports and presentations include National School Development Council Awards for Academic Growth and Student Leadership and Learning, Massachusetts Association of School Superintendent Award, Ashlin Middle School, Aaron Leappelle, Warren Approvals, Superintendence Report, Assistant Superintendence Report.
002Our action items, discussion, updates, and votes include um information about the superintendent's evaluation. Um Joshuin Gracias grade 12 Eagle Scout project proposal, AHS environmental club storm drain project proposal. Policies for a second reading vote include IKF graduation requirements, IKFE competency determination, and our consent agenda includes Oh, did I miss one? Thank you, Jim. Uh, JEC, Middle School Pathway Exploration, and our consent agenda includes approval of gifts and donations, minutes from September 24th, 2025, and minutes from October 8th, 2025. We'll have reports of school committee members and then we will adjourn. Um, I will ask if everyone's okay with the order of business um, and take attendance. Marcy, >> yes. >> Tina, >> yes. Paul. >> Yes. >> Mark, >> what I heard. Yes. >> Yeah. Trust me, it's all good. It's all good. Okay. Um
003I'm going to ask if there's anybody in the uh either online or in the audience who wants to offer public comment. >> Sure. Okay. Um seeing none, we are going to move to our um first item on the agenda, the National School Development Council Awards for Academic Growth and Student Leadership and Learning. >> Great. Thank you, Mrs. Tasty. It's always a pleasure. Um each year as superintendent, I get to offer three awards to students, seniors, uh hopefully before they get all their college um resumes and recommendations and everything in in place. So, uh with the help of Miss Ankur as well as the the counseling staff, uh I reach out and and get a little bit of information on a number of students. And the two awards we have tonight, uh, NASDAQ is a is
004a company that we utilize that helps us, uh, with our enrollment, uh, working with us on on a close basis for professional development. Uh, so it's nice, um, that they give us that opportunity. So, I'm just going to read a little bit here, uh, if you will, uh, indulge me here. The NESD award is presented to high school seniors who have consistently pursued a high level of academic effort and who have also served as positive role models for the student body. Recipients of the award exemplify exemplify admirable character and accomplishment. When I call your name and I'll have you come up and chery will present the award uh to you. So I'm proud to present the first NZDC award to Maximo Gamboa. Maximo is not only one of our highest achieving students, but also an
005exceptional young man both inside and outside the classroom as well as in Yeah, get your get your accolades here. As well as in the community. Academically, Maximo has been outstanding with an impressive 4.45 GPA. He ranks in the top 10% of this year's senior class. He consistently challenges himself with a rigorous course load and was recommended by his teachers for five advanced placement classes this year. and an endorsement of both his intellect and work ethic. A triilingual student, Maximo has earned the seal of biiteracy in Spanish, is on track to earn it again in AP French. Maximo is also an ideal student athlete, dedicating himself to wrestling and especially varsity tennis, where he served as team captain last year as a junior. He served on the school committee advisory council last year. Maximo plans to
006study mechanical engineering in college, and I'm confident he will excel in all his future endeavors. It's my pleasure to present the NASDAQ award to Maximo Gamboa. [Applause] Our second recipient of the NZDC award goes to Taylor Cotch. [Applause] Taylor is a respectful, passionate, empathetic, and highly motivated student who consistently demonstrates exceptional collaboration skills. Ranked among the top 10% of her class, she has maintained an impressive GPA while embracing a rigorous course load throughout high school. Beyond the classroom, Taylor has been an active and engaged member of the school community community. She is a member of the National Honor Society and AP Scholar and has served as student representative on both the student council, site council, and the youth advisory council. She has contributed as a peer leader, participated in academic decathlon, joined the Make a
007Wish Club, taken part in the Give the Kids the World trip, and written for the school newspaper. As captain of the varsity softball team, she exemplifies dedication, compassion, and balance, making her a truly well-rounded individual. Taylor plans to study political science in college, and we're confident she'll continue to excel. It's my pleasure to present the Nest Award to Taylor Clutch. And our final award is the Massachusetts Association of School Superintendent Award. So it's a organization that Mr. Kairo and I belong to that really supports assistant superintendents and superintendents around the Commonwealth. Uh so this this award is presented to every school district often in the fall as I said before the senior year to students who exemplify exemplify academic achievement community contribution. I'm thrilled to announce the academic excellence award to Zia Kashwan. A hard-working,
008responsible, and driven senior who ranks in the top 10% of her class with an impressive 4.62 GPA. Zia has continually challenged herself with a rigorous course load and is currently enrolled in six AP classes, reflecting her strong commitment to academic growth and excellence. A member of the National Honor Society and recipient of the Dartmouth Alumni Book Club Award, Zia is recognized for her intellectual curiosity and leadership. Outside the classroom, she serves as president of the biology club, an officer of the CARES Club, an academic decathlon competitor, a site council representative, and and coral pianist accompanist. It's a lot a lot right there. Um, looking ahead, Zia plans to major in marine biology in college where we are confident she will continue to make a positive impact. Z is a kind, motivated, and well-rounded individual who
009truly embodies academic excellence. Congratulations to all three of you. >> And you don't need to stick around. You're welcome to go. >> But we're very proud of all of you. Yes. And that is an amazing list of accomplishments. >> Yeah. Well done. Congratulations. >> Great job, everybody. >> Congratulations. >> Thanks. Right. >> Congratulations. You >> were sophomores when I left. >> Okay, Miss Lushel, you're up >> already. >> Hold on. Miss Lashel, >> I got it for you. I've got it. I can start before you get it up. >> Yeah. Yeah. Good. Okay. >> Um good evening. I'm just here um to provide a very brief overview of kind of how the schedule roll out and changes have gone. Um as you know, I was here many times last year >> uh to talk about
010the changes that we were going to make. Um and and now that we've started, I wanted to just give you a little bit of an update. I think important to note that um the theme for the year at the middle school is positivity, flexibility, and grace. Um we've had a lot of change. Um and it's important for me that the faculty um realize that that I'm acknowledging that it's a lot and that we need to work through any difficulties together. So just to summarize why we made a change, um we were really looking at are we meeting all students needs? um coming in and looking at the discovery block and if it was equitable for all students and meeting needs. Um and we did not feel that it was um the data our data showed
011we had pretty significant gaps in reading and then our STEM data for the science standards the way it was previously being taught was not allowing students to have full exposure um to the STEM standards by the time they took the eighth grade MCCAST. our title one e and sped services all previously were taught into one block which really made a compliance um issue as well as not having the ability to divide students out based on student need and leveling um and then looking at an intervention block which I'll get to next. So, if you remember, we made changes to um each grade by removing the discovery. Students still have five core classes. Um sixth grade we divided >> Sorry, >> saying something to me. >> Oh, okay. I'm like >> um dividing uh ELA into
012reading. Oh, okay. Reading a section of reading and writing, adding an engineering class to the seventh grade core curriculum, and putting Spanish on team for eighth grade. Um students, >> thanks. >> Thank you. Uh so what student schedules look like, uh they have five core classes on their team, which leaves two blocks for unified arts or wellness. It's also the block where students receive um academic support or additional title one support. Um with these changes, we were also able to streamline um and and give a little more consistency to how often um wellness and unified arts were meeting. Um so all students went from unifi um excuse me, wellness meeting 60 times a year to 90. Um and unified arts from meeting 30 times a year to 45 classes a year. Um band is meeting
013all year long for all three grades. Our chorus numbers were happily so high for seventh and eighth grade. The original intent was chorus would meet all year as well. Sixth grade chorus is meeting all year long. Seventh and eighth we had to semesterize because the numbers were so high that we um did not have one of space for them and um needed students to have uh to put into all the other unified arts. So I think it's going to work out really well um for the seventh and eighth graders to have additional exposure though and for them to still have the opportunity for chorus and concerts and things like that. Um support blocks are not limited to one block throughout the day now. Um, and we are able or were able to group students um,
014specifically in reading and our title one math into leveled need, not just they need support and this is the block that works. So, how's it going? Um, overall I it's going really well. Um, the first few weeks were definitely a big adjustment. Um, I would say more so for staff than for students. um staff while they core content teachers on team had four classes and discovery. Having that fifth core content class of saying kind of the same thing the fifth time with a another 20, you know, 20 plus section of students to grade and prepare for definitely was a shift. Um discovery, lots of them were using it in different ways, but it got them to do something different in that block of the day. So, it was definitely an adjustment and a shift. Um,
015now that we've settled in and we're almost done term one, I think we've turned a corner on some of the stresses of it, um, and we've really found our groove. Um, it was very evident in the start of the year though, the discrepancy in how discovery was being used because some people really felt the loss of that in a very tremendous way and others did not, which shows that it was not being used as an effective 45 minutes every day for all students. Um, the new curriculum I think is the most exciting part. Um the sixth grade reading and writing teachers, I think if you got them up here, could go on and on and on about what they've already seen um for this and what we envision the long-term impact of dividing reading and
016writing out to be. I've observed um some reading and writing classes and just the depth they're able to go into specific specifically with reading and being able to preview plot and character development and context and things like that. and then writing, talking about the mechanics and the grammar. They're just really getting a a a double dose of it, which not only does the data show that we need, but um it's allowing both classes to to take a pause and really enjoy the content instead of rushing to get through it. Um, I have I think I had the most staff do summer curriculum work um in the district and I I can't shout them out all out, but I will shout out Khloe Dignako and Caitlyn Gentile who are the two teachers teaching engine engineering. Um,
017they were a math and a science teacher on half teams and dove in when I said this is what we're going to do. I'd love for you to do it. um they spent I don't know how many days in the office this summer working on curriculum and they have developed a course that is hands-on projectbased critical thinking application um kids just built doghouses and had to come up with the whole design and materials and um think about weather and um sustainability and temperature factor and and then built them and um it's it's been really awesome. to see and I'm excited to see what they're doing for the rest of the year. Um, and then for eighth grade, putting Spanish on team definitely for the students is making it feel like a a core class whereas
018previously it was kind of considered their UA block. Um, it's allowing those two Spanish teachers to have time with the core content teachers to talk about kids and make sure they're supporting kids in the way they need. Um, we did um learn early in the year. We had a little bit of a bigger gap than we expected with um all of the staffing issues we had with Spanish last year. As as you know, again, a reason I was here a lot last year. Um so they paused and reset and are really following um the Spanish one curriculum um to fidelity right now and feeling like even though some students had a good basis last year, all they're doing is getting more repetition of it. So hopefully ending the year with everyone feeling really prepared to
019go to the high school. Um, special education, I will say, has some really great positives and this is probably the area where we've learned the most from right at the start of the year for things that we can do even better next year. Um, from a compliance standpoint and grouping student standpoint, far improved. Um, but specifically in grades seven and eight where our inclusion teachers are not team based, they are contentbased. um making sure that we are pairing liaison with students that they see the most often definitely needs some finagling for next year which we can definitely do. Um like I said, unified arts teachers are loving the consistency of seeing the students and being able to just continue with their curriculum versus like what did we do five days ago? Um something that is
020is feeling a little bit lost for those that used it really well is that flex block or giving students that what I need time. um while we don't have a formalized way to work it into the schedule right now. I have been transparent with teams that I want them to try things um to see what works for them. So I have a variety of teams doing things in different ways. Um a couple of the sixth grade teams are using the last academic block every Friday as a catchup block or a what I need block. Um I have some seventh grade teams who are using the days they have second lunch. um they go to 30 minutes of the class, they go to lunch, they go back in the last 30 minutes is a flex or
021do I need to go see my science teacher instead of my math teacher? Um so we're modeling some different things out. I think it's probably the biggest discussion we're going to have this year if we look at making any significant change to blocks or timing and things like that to add that in not on a daily basis but maybe a weekly or twice a week basis just to address when students are absence or student need students need a little bit more intervention time to work it into the day. Um we started data teams which is really exciting. Um really looking at our data and uh the data itself as well well as anecdotally what students need. Um and we're starting a new tracking system of that um to figure out what supports we're putting in
022place and how they're working. Um and then starting tomorrow my ELA math science and then civics teachers are going to dive into our MCCAST data to look at the standards um and questions to see what curriculum impacts or changes need to be made for this year's content. That's it. >> Awesome. Does anybody have any questions? >> So, I'm curious, Erin, the sort of things that you're going to look at in the longer term. I know it's obvious only a few weeks of this. >> Um, that'll be like the measures of success, you know, whether that's culture in the building, whether that's assessment, or that there's specific things that you're looking for that are going to sort of be, okay, that confirms what we are thinking here in real terms. >> Yep. And some of it's
023going to take a little while to play out data-wise. Um I think we are optimistic we'll see significant growth in our sixth grade I ready scores this year um by the end of the year even potentially the midyear diagnostic based on the reading and writing. Um our engineering class it would be this seventh graders. So it'll be the end of their eighth grade year that they'll test on the science standards that we'll have kind of that data piece. Um, but from an anecdotal like again standpoint of how the building feels and how the teams feel and things like that, I think we're really the the thing we are most comfortable with right now are the curriculum decisions we made for what to add each grade. Um, if you ask my ELA teachers, they want reading
024and writing in all three grades. I don't think students would necessarily want that and they're really liking the engineering piece. Um, but yeah, some of the data is going to take some time to play out, but I think in regard to the day-to-day logistics of the schedule, that's really all we're evaluating right now is is is are we going to make any changes with that at the start of next year. Um, and and that's a to be determined. It would be small, I think, if we did. Um, but it would be to fit in some more structured time, I think, for that intervention or win type of block. Yeah. >> Hey, Erin, uh, do you get a feel yet on how any of the staffing implications of the changes are are going to play out?
025Right. I know with what we had in place, any kind of es and flows in in student population was very challenging to staff obviously and that's why we had half teams and we did all that all that stuff. And this was also supposed to, you know, help with some of that. And do you get a feel for whether that's playing out as we expected? We might we might need to you know, uh, just want to understand that potential implication down the line. >> Yeah. Um, I think right now, I mean, I think any principal would say we would, we will always take more staff. I mean, um, but it's what we're able to right now our course, our class numbers and things like that are really, really solid with what we have. It's our, um,
026our intervention supports, I think, would be where we're going to need potentially down the line. Um, I have one title one math teacher who is fully scheduled and could take more, I'm sure, if we were able to give him more. Um, and then our reading specialist, Melissa Steinberg, switched from an eighth grade ELA teacher to reading, and she's done an amazing job with our data and making sure students are getting shorter term interventions and support. Um, so right now with the staff we have, we're we're we're good. Um, and the half teams, you know, the change of of that, I think using the staff that I had to them to the ability I was able to use them. Um, where they ended up, I think is a good fit for them. >> Can I So,
027I just have a quick question to kind of visualize the the change in special ed, and I'm I'm thrilled to hear that you guys feel that it's working out really well. I would imagine with the leveling in math and ELA in particular, it's easier to to deliver services to the kids who may have needed specific math instruction or reading instruction. Where I'm curious is where it fits in is there there used to be and I may use the wrong term, but like an academic support block that I think a lot of kids got during that discovery time. So, where does that fit in now? >> So, that fits in depending on what grade they're in. So students have potentially two blocks um that are not a core content class and they might have wellness one
028and art in the other. Students who need academic support would have art and academic support to the extent that they need it. Um so not every day for all students. Students were scheduled based on their service delivery grid. So if they only required academic support four times a rotation, they're in that four times and then art the other three times. So, we really were able to tailor things to what the delivery grid said versus just, well, this is the block. They have academic support. They're going to have it every single day because there's nowhere else for them to go. >> Yes. So, do are there some kids who are missing out on those unified? >> So, they might have less of them. No one has no unified arts or wellness. Everyone has wellness. Everyone has
029some level of unified arts. And for students who did have academic support, there was some conversation of what might be your most interesting unified art to make sure that we're trying to tailor students schedules to meet their needs since there is a limited time for them to attend. Um, but a lot of discussions with the special education staff have been do they need academic support every day? um because if not now that we have the ability to get them into a unified arts class in the same block. Um so I don't know the exact data but I would say it's probably close to 50% of our students who who now have it every other day and are alternating it with unified art and then in their other block they have a full block of wellness
030or unified arts. >> Yeah. >> Great. Thank you. >> Anybody else? >> You're off the hook. >> Well done. Go while you can. Thank you, Erin. >> Good stuff. Okay, next up, warrant approvals. >> Uh, between doesn't have the first thing, so I'll add it. I, Paul Kendall, authorized by my signature. Oh, wait. It just changed. The blur is different. Sorry. Uh, between October 9th, 2025 and October 20 22nd, I Paul Kendall, uh, authorized by payables payable in the amount of uh $472,682.554. This includes general fund expenses of $193,4162 revolving expenses of $273,000 uh $173,89 grant expenses of $5,290.37 and meals tax expenses of $8655. >> Thank you, Superintendent. for time sakes um because we got to be done by six for the next meeting and we have two student presentations. I have nothing to
031report tonight. >> Okay, Mike. >> I think that's what he's saying. >> Um mine my mine's very quick. Uh just to echo what Aaron said about the ELA uh work at the M middle school. I met with our ELA curriculum leadership team this week and Ryan Vanir who is representative from the middle school had wonderful things to say about the change that was made in grade six and he actually said from his perspective he's teaching the writing right now and he has reached a point right now in writing where he normally wouldn't be getting to to until December because of the fact that it's a standalone course. So he's very excited about what this can become. Uh so I thought that would bring you that you know information. Uh also Mendes shared the work that
032they had completed during their data team meetings and I was blown away by the uh level of support that they were going to be providing to every student uh targeted intervention for every student. Each student has a specific targeted learning goal that they're going to be working on um with dates attached to it and a plan and action plan in place for all students to achieve that goal. And it's really impressive work that's being done there. And that that is basically what Warren has been doing and this has been the this has been our goal as a district to take it from Warren to Mendes and seeing the fruits of that. It was it was really exciting for me the other day when they presented um an example of the different plans that were put
033in place for a specific grade three classroom. Uh and the AHS ELA team or the English department um once again did a tremendous job each year that they get together and they do a data dive day is what I sort of call it. Um where they were, you know, paying particular attention to the MCCAST open response questions. this year they saw what we expected to see um a little dip in some of these scores based on non-responses as well as off-topic responses and the in the state told us that that's what they saw overall I'm sure directly related to question two um but they also saw some really strange um uh discrepancies in scoring this year that they were concerned about what they normally would think should have been a four was a three this
034here and they're they're they're questioning a little bit what was happening at the state level in terms of how student responses were graded and we're wondering if that has anything to do with the AI grading that happened. Um so we're taking a good hard look at that and and using it to obviously inform their instructional practices but also taking all that data with a grain of salt because it's it looks different than than it used to look. Um other other than that professional learning is going really well this year. I I had an exciting day today, yesterday, and tomorrow with our year 2 staff. One of the best things that we do is that partnership with menopton and Milford. All of our Ashlin year 2 folks at this point have participated in their learning walks.
035We're getting great feedback. Tomorrow we are hosting. Thank thank you to all of our principles and our directors who make sure that that day goes smoothly by scheduling uh to have folks visit classrooms. And a big thank you to all the teachers who are going to be inviting educators into their classrooms to learn about the wonderful things that we do here. >> Thanks, Mike. Um, superintendent evaluation. We need to get that. >> Yeah. >> Going. >> So, all I'm doing tonight is just presenting a couple things. one, normally I would present the entire process that we go through and I will do that at the next meeting we have, but I did want to at least get on your radar opportunity for you to give me feedback over the next, you know, couple weeks before
036we we uh finalized the actual evaluation process. If you remember at the end of last year, we had a number of goals. We had seven goals total last year and we had four that we didn't fully complete and that we're rolling over into this year as well. So those are from the district policies down. For instance, looking at that actual policies, looking at our MTSS, uh educator evaluation, uh as well as uh more um communication from the central office as well as the principles. The the one that I did add uh which I will have you review as well uh deals with the schools um and a fields working group uh me working with representatives from local organizations, town of Ashland, school finance, facilities, etc. to develop a framework and an outline and a process
037that allows the public schools uh to by the beginning of next fiscal year um overtake uh our fields in terms of rental properties as rental properties for us like we do our buildings uh but also maintenance etc. There's a lot of work that has to be done in terms of developing that framework, but uh Michael Herbert and I had a conversation that I would hopefully uh by April have a framework that I could present not only to the school committee but finance committee and select board. Uh so that's that's a pretty heavy lift um that I've added as one of the goals this year. So we've already begun the process. We've already met u and doing a lot of data diving and I've I've had some help from a number of folks including Marcy around
038this table um looking at some of the data with me. So, um, these are the goals that I want to focus on. If there's something else that you want to add, let me know and I can craft that goal for the next time we actually have a meeting. So, then you can approve the goals at the next meeting. That's all I'm doing today. >> Sounds good. >> Questions, thoughts? Just to clarify though, if if Jim doesn't hear from anybody, moving forward with the five goals, the four from last year, the one that you added and um >> you know, it's just a question of whether anybody feels like there's something missing from that lineup or something that we should start focusing on that we're not already doing. But that's >> and it's a fine line,
039right? >> There's still significant work to do on the four goals that are >> rolling over then that might just be enough right where it is. >> Yeah. sort of that conversation we've had here numerous times. Sorry. What is your normal day-to-day job? What are you doing? Um, you know, as opposed to uh what should be highlighted in terms of we want to focus as an organization, >> right? >> So, >> okay. >> Thanks. >> Okay. Next up, we have Joshu Gracias, grade 12 Eagle Scout project proposal. >> Okay. >> Hello. >> Let me pull it up. Let's see here. >> Um, all right. Uh, hi. My name is Joshuan. Uh, I'm a senior at Ashlin High School if you don't know me. Um, I'm here to talk about my Eagle Scout service project proposal
040today. And, um, pretty much what I'll be doing is I'm going to be building a 4x4 tote rack for the storage room at the at Ashlin High School. Um, right now, if you go into the storage room, actually, it's extremely messy. There's stuff everywhere like uniforms on the ground and random shelving and it's kind of just it's less because of poor maintenance and more because of insufficient ways of storing the items that are in the room. Um and yeah, there's like floor cabinets that aren't even being used. And uh I'm pretty much going to um take an init initiative to organize that room by building this 4x4 storage tote rack in which um there'll be 16 um rows or 16 totes that you can slide into this shelf where um you where and I'm going
041to be also labeling all these totes with with like one being like Ashlin boys soccer, one being like Ashlin girls soccer And this way when any athletic staff needs to find um like let's say like the Ashland girls soccer uniforms, they they can just pull out the tote right off the shelf because it'll be labeled and they can find it there rather than having to show rumage through like a bunch of different uh items that are just randomly put in the room. Um and yeah, I'll be building it at my house and then installing it in the school. Um, yeah, that's that's my project and I'm open to any questions if you guys have anything. >> Let you guys go first. >> Uh, so in in your your description, you talk about meeting with Mr.
042Anderson. Have you met with the new athletic director? >> Yeah. Yeah. Um, initially I was I met with Mr. Anderson and talked about it, but he obviously um left, so I met with the new director and um talked to him about it. >> Okay. And Would would there be any changes from his perspective or >> um No, I think we discussed pretty much the same thing. >> And uh have you met what other uh staff have you met with? Have you met with I'm assuming? >> I met I met with Miss Kerr. Um >> John John Murray, our facilities. >> Yeah, I also met with him. >> Um and we talked about the project. Yeah. >> Oh yeah. Yeah, he also the new athletic director also um did this very similar project that his school
043was good. >> That's great. >> And Mr. Murray's I mean if you want to speak to it I mean he's certainly in favor of this project. So >> Mr. Con is very excited. >> Yeah. >> That's awesome. Is there work that needs to be done? I mean obviously it sounds like that the real problem is just lack of the organizational system but is there work that needs to be done with the teams to make sure things end up in their proper place and not like back on the floor. Like are we working with with people to >> make sure they work with you and make good use of >> what you're doing? Uh obviously it's should be like an like a group effort but um because everyone needs to kind of pitch in. But um
044this would kind of be easy because like if like I don't know like the boys soccer coach comes in and needs to put the uniforms in, he'll be able to see, oh this totes boys soccer and he can just put it in >> rather than having to just throw it somewhere and then not know where it is the year after. and uh not familiar with the room itself. Uh just from a capacity perspective, if you're building this, is there room for another one? Should the need be and and have you thought about uh whether at some point in the future there's need for additional capacity and how that would be? >> Yeah. Um there there would be a good amount of room after I built this. I mean, it would just be standing up on
045one one wall. It's a relatively small room, but um you could there'd be a lot of space to like walk around and even store other things. And if I if need be there, you could build another one. >> It's a narrow room for sure. Right. I mean, I've been in there numerous times. >> Yeah. Yeah. >> So, I'm also not familiar with with the space, but are the totes already there? We just need like a specific storage structure to hold them on or are the totes a part of what you'll be >> Yeah, the totes are also a part of what I'll be um putting into the room. Um yeah, >> great. Sounds wonderful. It sounds like you talked to everybody that you need to talk to on your end. >> What's your time frame?
046>> Um I'm planning to start the project this week. Um, I want to kind of get things going because like I want to also use it for college um and talk about it in my in my college application. So, >> of course, >> are you getting any like donations of supplies or anything or is it all on you? >> Um, right now it's all on me, but yeah, that's >> Thank you. Yeah, but and anybody who's listening, >> you want to donate >> and and Jim, I assume because this is a freestanding thing that there's there's nothing we need to do from an approval perspective. It's not a permanent structure of any >> could removed needed. >> Miss Sar, did you have something you want? >> I just want to share. I don't think he
047even knows this, but one of the community service projects last week was >> Oh, really? >> It's ready for you, Josh. >> Perfect. Yeah. >> Excellent. Well, sounds like a a wonderful project that everybody's on board with. So, if somebody has a motion to approve the project, >> well, I don't know if you have to, but I I think it's good to have it on the record. We can >> I think it's good. Y >> So, I'll move to approve the project as presented. >> I'll second. >> All in favor? >> I Great. >> Excellent. Thank you guys. >> Good to have fun. >> Next. >> Be sure to come back with pictures with >> Please come back. Um, the AHS Environmental Club storm drain project proposal. >> Hello >> and welcome. >> Uh, hello
048and good afternoon. Uh, my name is Kelly Danhee. I'm a junior at the Ashen High School and I'm a president of the environmental action club along with I'm Ria Dubet and I'm also president of the environmental action club. >> Um hi, I'm Racha Morura. I'm the vice president of the environmental action club. >> Welcome. >> Thank you. Uh we are here uh as a group of students who are passionate about helping the environment and spreading awareness about sustainability. Uh we have two environmentally inspired idea and projects that we wanted to present today um for the Ashlin High School to promote both creativity and sustainability. So first starting with our storm drain art, uh we want to initiate a project that will further educate the community um about how valuable and delicate storm drains are, especially
049during rainfall and intense storms. Uh however, waste like trash, fertilizer, and even dog poop are littered into storm drains which then wash into our local rivers and lakes. And in order to promote this mindfulness, we have decided to create um a project which is storm drain art. Uh we would like to do it at the back of the high school, which is where parent pickup and drop off is. and we would like to promote a design which is right behind you right on side um which is the ashron letter A and it's draining into the storm drain. So, um, idea, our idea is to paint this with the whole environmental action club, all each helping to paint and to promote sustainability across the high school. And we would like to carry out this project on
050Saturday, November 8th, particularly in the afternoon because of sports. And our rain day would be um Sunday, November 9th um as an extra day in case November 8th does not work out. But um it's an eye-catching design on the pavement surrounding the storm drain. So we just want to promote sustainability at the high school and hopefully we could do this at other public schools as well. >> Sorry. And just to clarify on the picture, the gray above the A would be the storm drain. It's those grates on the road and then the rest is our design. Thank you. >> Thank you. >> Um our second project that we're looking to do this year is create a um um plastic bottle cap mural. Um so the Ashon High School uses a lot and disposes of like
051a large amount of um plastic water bottles every week. We do recycling around the high school and we can see it every week, every Monday. Um, therefore, we had the idea of making an art mural out of plastic bottle caps that we' like recycled throughout the year. Um, in like the downstairs science hallway across from room um, B133. Um, our ideas for the mural are centered around like environmental sceneries, slogans or like the Asham logo and we would like to carry this out. um anywhere from like late January to early February in 2026. >> Um I have some um papers with like some um design ideas that we wanted to look at. Can I pass? >> Awesome. Thank you. Sure. >> Want to pass them along here? And while any you're doing that uh questions
052for the ladies? It sounds like maybe you've already uh already thought about it, but because as you were talking that >> once you do the storm grain art, right, and you have done it and maybe you can kind of >> make it so it's a potential teachable moment, you can go to other schools and work with the art teacher or the principles and >> they've been all doing wanting to do community service and taking care of the schools and stuff like that. So yeah, >> you know, if you think about it from how do you package that up as as a project that you could you could really do that. So it sounds like you're already maybe thinking about doing that. >> Yeah, and we were already in contact with the Ashland storm water advisory
053committee about this project. It was actually their idea. We are here just to carry it out um and kind of organize it at the schools. But that's definitely one of our goals is to spread this project and this artwork to other schools and maybe other parts of town, too. um to raise awareness for storm water pollution. >> How many drains do you intend to do at the high school? >> Just one. Um it is there is a storm drain that that's right by the like parent pickup and drop off area close to the crosswalk there. So we think that would be the best spot for visibility to put the artwork. >> So I love the idea of the visual because it gives people a reminder to be mindful of what's going down the drain. You
054guys did a great job at the beginning of your presentation of discussing why it's important to think about what's going in the drain. So, have you thought about any kind of um kind of education campaign to share with your students or others in the community why this is important in addition to the visual reminder? >> Yes, we have talked about it, but we haven't put any plan in place. So, uh, with the storm water advisory committee, we also talked about, uh, maybe talking to the WAKA TV and doing something with them. Um, also we often do posters around the school. So, that's another thing we could do just at the high school, maybe possibly to other schools, too. Um, we know we could do the morning announcements, >> tabletop. >> Oh, right. and the tabletop
055sign. >> Yeah, >> get hungry. Tabletop. >> Yes, that is also um an option. So, >> another option you could consider is um I think it's I'm not close enough to the mic, but um Michael Herbert sends out a town newsletter that goes via email. And so that might be a nice connection to the town and to spotlight the awareness you're raising. Um they love to highlight, you know, things going on in the community and this is a this is a great one and I could see a lot of the Warren kids loving this and Pitway like don't forget that preschool they would maybe glue in those bottle caps you no no problem >> right and what a great way to educate the younger kids in our community especially if you guys do expand this
056and it goes to other schools I think it would give you a great opportunity to have some time to teach them why you're doing it and what that Yeah, that would be awesome. >> A reminder to myself and Wacka is that we said last year that um I would go periodically to share what what's happening here on school committee. So, I will spread the word there as well. >> Thank you. Yes. >> It sounds like you've already talked to Miss Sar. I know everybody you just want to make sure you've talked to everybody that you need to talk to about >> um installing the art in the various places but um >> it's and how many um other students are working with you or is it just the three of you? >> We have 19
057a >> little less than 20 in the club. >> Awesome. So, we know there are definitely probably not all members uh who are available to help us paint, but we know definitely that there is a good chunk will just three of you. Yeah, it sounds like you've thought through your timing and all of that. So, >> sounds wonderful. >> And we'll help. >> How are you getting the paint? >> You purchase it purchasing it yourselves? >> Yes. And the storm water advisory committee offered to uh foot some of that. Um, but for paintwise, uh, Miss Sur said we could use the same brands of paint that the seniors use to paint the parking spots. >> You should survey those seniors who painted their parking spots. Having a senior lot of paint at home, so take
058a survey before you buy. >> Yeah, they may be more than willing to donate it and you could probably use some of that. >> Yeah, >> a great idea, Marcy. >> Have you guys also thought about reaching out to other clubs and maybe having them volunteer with you guys? >> No, we haven't, but we definitely could. >> I think student would love to >> help out with credits or something like that. And also, if you want to maybe send it in the newsletter that's sent out every day that Miss Cheney sends out, I think people would love to maybe. >> Okay. Yeah. >> Awesome. Good stuff. >> Thank you so much. >> Thank you. >> Good luck. >> Thank you. >> All right. Policies. Fun stuff. I I hate going to policy after all these
059great uh meetings with students and then we likew >> but it's a second read second read. Exactly. So be quick. >> So if you want to go in order I mean the the graduation requirements um nothing changed from the last conversation. The the only one that had a change from the initial read was the compy determination and as I stated before um all that is is we had to list out the courses. Um, so, uh, Kelly, let's see if I can pull it up properly here. Um, Kelly went back and made sure that we had the courses, uh, so we could list them in the policy. This is what was missing. Uh, so that was the only thing that we added to the first read. Um, and you know, again, these have to be uploaded
060by November 1st. Um, unless we seek an extension, I don't think we will. That's sort of the reason why I wanted it to be taken care of. Now >> center online. >> Well, they need to be in the desi portal by November one. >> What is integrated? >> It's math. >> Yeah. Yeah. >> But >> well, this is what you gave me. So I I can change it. >> I will change it. Yeah, but it is math. Correct. >> All right. So that was the only one that has we didn't hear from any members about concerns after first. So I think we're going to go through and vote. >> Who's got a motion on IKF the graduation requirements? >> Move to approve policy IKF graduation requirements as presented. >> Second. >> All in favor? >>
061I. And then the IKFE competency determination as amended. Move to approve policy I KFE competency determination as presented. >> Second. >> All in favor? >> I. >> And then third JC middle school pathway exploration. >> I move to approve policy JEC middle school pathway exploration as presented. >> Second. >> All in favor? >> I. >> And do we have a motion to approve the consent agenda? >> So moved. >> Second. >> All in favor? >> I. All right. We're on reports. >> 11 minutes to go. Take your time. >> Yeah. >> Uh so this is a big weekend for Ashlin High School. We have our homecoming game this Friday and the homecoming dance on Saturday. Uh tickets are for sale. Uh and you can look for that. It should be in the daily announcements. Um,
062seniors are starting to get into the thick of it with um, college applications with the first round of early actions due um, November 1st. So, it's coming up. I got to get on that >> within days. >> Um, >> maybe you don't want to stay for this next meeting. >> Um, other than that, it's been pretty much mostly the same. uh seasons are starting to wrap up for um sports, but other than that, good day at the high school. >> Awesome. Wonderful. Thank you. >> Um I attended the middle school site council and a lot of the discussion was the presentation that Erin um made, but one thing to mention is the Keith um tech showcase is tomorrow. So, uh many people are attending that and the uh the way you get into keep tech
063has changed. There's a statemandated lottery now and you get certain I don't know you can get certain uh number of tickets to enter the lottery depending on different criteria the state has put in. So that's going to be a change. But going forward at the next meeting, we're going to talk about grading policies at the middle school and how they're looking at that as a staff and um working with both the high school and the Mendes on discussions about multi-tiered support. Good discussion. >> Awesome. Thanks, Marcy. >> Um I don't have a ton to report. though this afternoon I was able to go to the unified basketball game at the high school which is always fun. Ashton um squeaked out a win. I think the final score was 58 to 56 and they were all
064engaged and I was just going to say I may be slightly off but they won the game >> and there was a lot of eight to six then >> they were a lot there was a lot of enthusiasm. The the students were having a great time so it was always nice to be able to stop by that >> more than [Laughter] wasn't going to go there. >> We made sure they know you said. >> Yes, this is on film. >> Uh, so not much. I I did attend the Mendes site council. We had policy subcommittee meeting. >> I don't have anything for tonight. >> Um, I did attend the Warren site council and uh we were focusing this time. First of all, there's a few extra new parent members this year. So, it's great like
065we have really good participation and some new faces. Um, but we all know I guess Warren is the building where there's the most need for volunteers and the most opportunities for volunteers right in that building. They they help the teachers a lot. But since COVID though, that a lot looks a lot different than it used to. um and trying to re-engage people to come back and and try to also better define like what a volunteer is. Like when the word goes out for volunteers, some people might be hesitant because like what are you asking me to commit to for the entire year? Um, and so a better description of, you know, you can come in for one day on 20 minutes and read a story to one of the classes or you can do something
066more regular or different teachers might have different needs and and maybe they could get organized and get their needs out. So, it was really good conversation about how to re-engage and also just reflecting on, you know, we all went through that time together, but some things sort of like moved away from the line and then had to like bring them back now that we're >> now that we're moving through that. So, uh, and policy subcommittee and that's it for me. >> Anybody else? No, we're all good. Okay, we'll take a motion to adjurnn. We have another meeting following. So moved. Second. >> All in favor? >> Good night everybody. Thank you. Good evening everyone. Um it's nice to meet again. Uh so this is the uh October 22nd uh 20 2025 meeting of the Ashland
067Tri Board which is a meeting of the select board, the school committee and the finance committee. Um as it is a meeting of all the boards, if I could ask uh the chair of each board to call their meeting to order and we'll start with the select board. Joe, if you wouldn't mind doing that. >> Not at all. Thank you, Mr. Tom Manager. U call the meeting on select board to order at 6:15. Can't see the clock. >> 6:15. I'm sorry. My biological pops up. >> It's on. >> Okay. And uh Miss Ty, if you wouldn't mind. >> Yes. Um I'll call the school committee meeting to order at 6:13. >> And I will call the finance committee meeting to order at 6:13. Finance Committee to order 613. Excellent. >> So 6:13. Sorry uh we're
068getting started a little bit later than what we had anticipated, but um you know that's that's the way technology goes sometimes these days, but uh thank you all for taking the time to uh come here and assemble tonight and talk about uh the financial condition of the town of Ashland. Uh it hasn't been that long since we've met. We actually met earlier this year a couple of times as we were going through the 2026 budget and as we saw during the course of that time um in those discussions uh we're facing some serious financial challenges uh coming up well actually starting in FY 2026 and they're actually only going to get worse um as the years go on unless we take some kind of action and make some kind of decisions which is one thing
069that we're going to be talking about tonight. Um I will say that even though this might seem I don't know kind of almost as if a surprise and it might be a surprise to some of the residents um as I'll show tonight and as we go through it and I think the superintendent would do the same thing. Um you'll see that this has been a time coming and uh what we've been able to do is manage by being creative, by being hardworking and by being um selective in in what we do and how we do it. So before I move on, I just uh want to introduce Superintendent Jim Adams who will also be presenting tonight. And um we have a number of staff here from both the school department and uh the municipal side.
070I won't take the time to introduce everybody. Um but I think their um their attendance here I think is is important to note just because first of all they they've helped you know write the financial ship or or continue to write the financial ship but they're also very very invested in what we do tonight and what we say tonight and what you say tonight I should say. So, just to go over a little bit of the agenda tonight, um we'll start. We've got a couple of new FinCom members. I know most of you know everybody here, but um I will just after the agenda just give a couple of new FinCom members an opportunity to introduce themselves briefly. Um we will then move into Superintendent Adams school department specific data presentation. Um then we will
071go through um the overall budget and municipal data um and talk about that and then we need to have an open discussion and talk about some of the things that we need to consider uh financially moving forward. And and one of those is an operational override. And so what I am hoping comes out of tonight's meeting is you make a decision as a tribe board. We'll do it through a straw poll, excuse me. Um is whether or not you want to move forward in exploring an override officially. Okay? And I'll talk about next steps at the end, but that's my hope coming out of this meeting is that a decision is made um in regards to that. Okay? So, uh, without further ado, I know we have a couple brand new FENCOM members. Um, Ken
072Early is here and then Anton, I believe, is on Zoom and and Roit, is this your No, this isn't your first try board meeting. Um, but Ken, if you want to just introduce yourself, uh, make sure you bring your mic up here and use that big booming voice of yours to carry forward. >> There we go. Thank you. Uh, good evening. Um, my name is Ken Early. Uh, I am, uh, been a resident of the town for quite some time now. Um, I, my wife and I are raising two children here. We have two kids in the Ashlin school system that we love. We love the town very much. Uh, to pay for those two children, um, I am a I I I'm a lawyer. I practice law in the investment management business. I I
073work at a um a firm called Mercer, which is a subsidiary of an insurance a large insurance company. I commute in and out of the city. As I told my ThinkCom uh colleagues, the only thing I really really complain about is the commute. Other than that, I'm generally a pretty happy guy and I'm very happy to be here and it's very nice to meet you all. Um and I'm more than happy to answer questions about my background if anybody has them. >> Thanks, Ken. Thank you. And >> Anton, I believe you're hiding back there in the um on in Zoom land. >> Yes. Can you guys hear me? >> Yes. >> Hey guys, my name is Antonov. I'm also a new member of the finance committee. Um I've lived in Ashland since 2021. Um and
074I'm uh I think I might actually be the only person here on Zoom because unfortunately today is my uh first day back from paternity leave. So, uh, >> getting back for six was a little tough. Um, I'm also, uh, I'm an attorney. I practice, uh, commercial real estate at a firm called Daily Piper. Um, and yeah, same as, uh, Ken, just willing to answer any questions you guys might have and looking forward to working with everyone. >> Excellent. Thanks, Antony. As you can see, one of our financial strategies is now to stack the fincom with attorneys. Uh, so we can Yeah. And the school committee. So, uh, Lisa me, I hate to tell you this, but, uh, the legal budget is is being reduced. But, um, without further ado, I'm going to turn it over
075to Superintendent Adams, who is going to go over, um, some school specific data, uh, regarding the financials. >> Jim, >> thank you. And, uh, welcome to the new members. Throw you right into the the scalding water of having just conversations about town finances and overrides, etc. So, um, again, for the community, Jim Adams, superintendent of schools, and I'm just going to present a a really a grand overview of where we are, uh, from a school perspective with finances because I think as we look at finances from the general government and the school side, obviously, you know, Michael and I have worked well together, this is my, you know, 12th year superintendent and we've really worked hard at developing a relationship and working through the financial impacts of not only the schools, but some of the
076special consider generations of schools such as, you know, the the building projects in town, uh the the apartment complexes, the um moveins, the special education costs, the rising special education costs, the cost of transportation, utilities. All of these things are really having a a detrimental impact on our overall budget. And I just want to again share an overview of of a projection, if you will. And I want you to take some of this with a grain of salt because obviously we don't have uh true numbers as we move forward um for FY27 28 29. But I'm trying to give you a an overview of what it looks like or what Chris Matthew and I and and Mike Cyra uh have looked at in terms of the data uh to ensure that what we're presenting to
077you tonight is is really pretty accurate in terms of a vision of where we are. So before I begin, any questions on on really what I'm looking to present here? No. Great. Michael, how we do this? Okay. >> Yeah, I should probably put my glasses on, huh, Mr. Kendall? This thing here. >> There you go. Now I got nothing. delete. >> Yeah, we we'll just stick with it here. Okay, so this screen here and I apologize for not having handouts for you all, but uh some of this got uh finalized a little while ago to be honest with you. Um partly I'm I'm giving you a presentation here that makes a number of assumptions, right? And these assumptions go back to policy and conversations that we've had as a community over the past 12 years
078to be honest with you. And really where we've begun our conversation from a school perspective is when we look at our operating budget or our appropriated budget, we typically start and have started uh you know with a 3.75% increase. That's that's where we've begun our budgeting process in years past. And that was came out of conversations with um with the town many years ago and policy. This is the number that we we stuck with. That doesn't mean that's where it ended up. Uh it just means that's our beginning point. So, what I am trying to do here is really show you what 3.75% if we just stayed on that number, what does that really look like in terms of service delivery, in terms of our uh ability to uh manage uh a school system of
0793,000 kids, 500 employees, um you know, and close to a $50 million budget. So, I think that's that's important step number one. So, FY27, for instance, would look like a 1.66 66 million increase at 3.75% over the appropriated budget we had in the springtime meeting. So you can follow the the trail there, right? But what I think is critically important is that you understand that's really not our budget. That's what's appropriated that comes out of taxpayer funding. The rest of it, the rest of our budget comes through either grant funding, uh school choice funding, so students who are choicing into our system. It comes from charging families for transportation. It comes from charging for rentals of our facilities. It comes from many years ago of of hosting international students. So there are a number of
080things that go into the budget that you don't see as an appropriation. I think that's critically important because when we start losing school choice revenue, when you start losing building revenue, when you start losing grants potentially from the federal government, those all have really, you know, negative impacts on the overall service delivery to our students and our families. So, in this instance, I'm giving what what it looks like and again, this is a higher level overview of the budget itself, right? So, we have grant funding of $882,000. We have school choice revolving, meaning we have and use school choice monies to help offset our budget so it balances to that whatever that number appropriated number is. Right. >> Just in case everybody doesn't know what school choice >> Sure. >> Do the 5-second version of
081>> I'll do the 5-second $5,000 version. Uh so so school choice in Massachusetts is under Mass General law allows for school districts, towns to opt into the ability to to have students come into your community from other communities. You get $5,000 a student. That's that's what we get for a school choice student. So each year the school committee has to vote on whether to open up seats or not. So I'll give a quick example. Let's go. Freshman year high school five students uh five seats are opened by the school committee in April we fill five students uh who come into Ashlin High School say from Frammingham Hollist wherever you get $25,000. So that money can be used for any purpose unlike transportation which has to be used specifically for transportation expenses. So when we charge
082families to utilize the busing that has to go towards paying for transportation where school choice funds can be used for anything. Okay. So is that yes >> that I have one question on that in regards to when you then look at chapter 70. So we get $5,000 for the students that are coming in for school choice. Yep. >> But then when we go back and we do the review of our student numbers for chapter 70, does do we get additional funds for those students? No. >> Or not. >> That's no. They are out. >> So, we're only ever going to get $5,000 a year for each of those students. >> At a higher level, um Yolanda, yes. At at a macro level, let's assume a student comes into the National Public Schools who is a
083English language learner or who is a uh on a special education plan. >> Uh we get incremental >> revenues. Okay. >> In addition to the 5,000. >> Perfect. Right. Great. That's what I just >> But it's not correct, Joe. Yeah. Does that help ease the Does that help ease the delta? >> Yeah, >> it's on. >> Yeah. >> I just I have a very low voice. You want me to use my outside voice? >> Use Donna's voice. >> Okay. I'll use my outside C voice. You won't like it. >> Um, so if we using school choice and say it's it's the $5,000, where's that delta? Because it costs Ashlin what? >> Say $16,000 a student. >> A student, right? So you have an $11,000 delta. Where is that money coming from? >> Yeah. So again,
084it's it's a a challenge, right? So here's here's how I would look at it this way. Say we have 20 students in an English class, right? And the average per pupil cost is $16,000. We add one more student who's a school choice student to that 20. We're still paying the same, right, for the teacher to be in front of the the kids. We're still paying for the lights for those 20 kids. It's it's so immaterial that that it wouldn't matter. We wouldn't be adding students to our to our through school choice should it put class sizes over a limit where you might have to hire another teacher. Okay. So, so we have space if you will within the classroom where it's being absorbed already. The teacher's already there, the lights are still on, the heat's
085on, etc. Yeah. >> Okay. Thank you. The seats are also per per grade. So, it's very specific what we open up. It's not just >> I just want to make sure that the folks at home that are watching this have a better understanding of what >> No, it's a great it's a great question because they're going to say the same thing. Well, there's $11,000 here. >> Yeah, it can be very confusing. Yeah. >> Can May can may I just ask? >> Of course. Of course. >> Quick point of clarification. Uh when you say 5,000, where is that money? Is that coming from the outgoing town or from >> Yeah. So, it so it comes from the outgoing town, but through the state it it gets repurposed through the the receiving town. So, we have students
086who are out who decide to go out of district. it comes out. Correct. If you look at the cherry sheet, I don't want to get too granular, but on the cherry sheet, you'll notice there's school choice out and school choice in. >> So, yeah. And and obviously our goal is to have more in than out. Um and and years ago, we did not have that, right? We are we are at a at a position now where our choice numbers because we are a highly desirable community to be in educationally, especially at the high school, and therefore uh our numbers are certainly increasing. Yeah. >> Um, question. How many in and how many out? >> So, great question. Right now, we have just under 60 students uh in school choice and we had less than 20
087out. >> Um, and that number varies. We'll know October one to be honest with you. Um, remember we only not only have students who are out choice-wise, but who attend uh KEF, right? So, that freshman year they go to KEF and there's a different appropriation for that, right? Um, so we probably have under 50 students at KEE right now. So >> thank you. >> Yep. So So again, we're at like 47 million in terms of of our real true budget, if you will, appropriated 44. This is sort of was a interesting task for me to think about our budget driver projections. So, what does it really mean when and Michael says to me, "Hey, Jim, where are you with your budget? What what's it really going to look like?" Well, there are lots of unknowns
088here, right? So, let's just start with things that we can predict. We can predict, and I'll make sure everyone gets this slide deck. We can predict what our salaries are, our COLA, our cost of living. So, that's their raises steps lane. So teachers and educators and and pair of professionals you move yeartoear based on your experience and your your um degree status um and other personnel contracts about 1.6 million next year. That's an that's the increase. I want you to keep that in mind, right? So because let's just back up for a moment. What did I say our total increase could be at 3.75%. >> 1.6 million. So we haven't talked about anything else yet. 80 plus% of our expense, our budget is salary, is personnel. So, as we continue on with FY27, what else
089is happening? Well, we know for a fact right now that special education costs, out of district tuition costs are going to increase probably close to 18% next year. So, private schools who have our students in town for special education reasons, whether it's residential or day school, we know because we've already started receiving bills for next year or letters from these schools saying, "By the way, our rates are going up by 21% next year or our rates are going up by 15% next year." So if you remember two years ago and I have a slide up here, it went up 18% and then it last year was probably closer to 10. These school district or these school systems, private schools are are in an enviable position where they can basically set their price and it's going
090to be approved at the state level. And that's a challenge for many districts. We may have less than 40 students. We do have less than 40 students out of 3,000 that are that are in out of district placements. Now, there's an offset for sure, which is circuit breaker, and we we'll get into that a little bit. But as we're talking about local finance, state finance, the Commonwealth right now is under a lot of pressure to to be able to meet mandated law, which is 75% reimbursement for circuit breaker. It's not going to happen this year, folks. We've been lucky the past few years where it has happened or 73%. There have been times where it's been in the 20s and while state law says it has to be 75%. If there's the the funding's not
091there, it's not there. So what's next? Increasing technology costs. We know on average it's about 10% of our technology that licenses etc. But also we have Chromebooks a replacement cost. So we need to start filtering these into and figuring these into our over overall operating budget. We don't have as you know there's not a specific capital plan that goes with the school system. We have we have a townwide capital plan where folks work together Chris Mike's group etc to have conversations about what and how we fund capital items. I firmly believe that as a district and as a an organization, this should be built into our budget. We should we should know ahead of time that we need these funds uh facilities expenses. Now, some could argue this is going to be this is a
092much higher number than normal, but we're adding in again projection, right? If we're in conversation about the national public schools being responsible for field maintenance of of the national public schools, now DPW is in charge of that, right? It comes out of the enterprise fund. It comes out of of the general government operating budget. And we're in the process of saying, okay, should the schools be responsible for not only the rental facilities of our of our fields as we do for our buildings, but also the maintenance and upkeep. This is a this is a guesstimate, if you will, of 250,000. But listen, I've started looking at the enterprise fund and the math and and the personnel that you need to ensure that our fields are up or you know are properly kept up. That's not
093a that's probably a low number, but I'm adding it in. Increasing utilities um curriculum needs English language arts that's going to move over to FY28. We are in need of our curriculum change and the materials and the professional development. That's a pretty hefty number, $750,000. It's a onetime expense for the materials. It's an ongoing expense obviously for professional development in years to come, but as Mike and I were talking, this is something that we need to do in the near future. Um, less reliance on school choice. I talked about school choice being something we can utilize for um any expense. Right now we currently have eight educators, eight folks that we pay their salaries out of on school choice. That's $630,000. If school choice dried up and just think about the math, we're spending a
094million dollars in school choice this year. This year we're bringing in 300,000 over a it's probably not very good, you know, to think about. Okay, a what three times the amount we're spending that we're bringing in. Probably not a good ratio, right? We're spending a million, we're bringing in 300,000 eventually because we've have a reserve and we've built it up. That's going to be depleted. So where do these folks go? They have to go to the operating budget. That's just what has to happen. The the ESSER funds that came in, the millions or $800,000 that we had in ESSER funds through COVID, we've absorbed a lot of those teachers in our operating budget. We were strategic about that. Then we have our our federal funding of salaries, 266,000. What if those go away? We've got
095to be prepared. I It's a mess. transportation about 152,000 incremental increase. The athletic annual operating deficit. We as a community have continually charged our families users fees for athletics. I am of the belief and of athletics is just an extension of the school day. It is an extension of the school day. It is part of the public school educational process. Yet here we are. We continually charge families to participate. But guess what? We don't charge nearly enough to cover the costs of running an athletic program. And I've got a slide a little bit later to to show you that it's significantly different between, you know, what we bring in for users fees, what we have built into the operating budget, and what we really need to run a program. >> Jim, what's the typical uh
096what's the typical athletic fee for students? I know that they vary a little bit. >> Yeah, I'm going to bring it up, Claudia. >> Yeah, but good question. I have it in another next slide, I think. So, so here's really where where I'm going here. Estimated increase, assuming all of these things occur, right? Assuming we would need to absorb all $600,000 into out of out of school choice, assuming we lose all $266,000 of federal funds, assuming um out of district is that 610,000 increase. Our true number in terms of an increase in the budget would be about $4.19 million. A 3.75% increase is 1.6, leaving us a deficit of 2.5 million. If you were sitting in the room with me in November with Chris, Mike, and our admin team, this is actually where we start
097our our conversation. We're starting a conversation at a $2.5 million deficit before anybody even says to me, "Hey, Jim, by the way, we need another English language arts teacher. We need another English language acquisition teacher. We we need these things in order to move our district forward." Then it compounds and adds on. So, I've just extrapolated that for for a three-year window. So, you can see that it goes from 2.5 to 3.1 to 2.5 again, you know. So that's that's pretty consistent questions on this slide. Again, it's these are hypotheticals obviously with the exception of like our salaries. The first three or four are pretty consistent. We know what those are. >> I think it's just important um to point out that this is maintaining a status quo. >> Yes. Yeah. This is this is
098basically you've got level service, right? Level service is one thing that's we're not adding anything to our our organization. Level funded, you would just give me the 44 million, right? And say, "Hey, have a nice day." And I'd be like, "Okay." Uh, I've got a $4.1 million deficit. Average teacher salary you say is 90,000. I've got to cut 50 people. Fine. That's sort of the conversation, right? That's that's going through your head. >> Going through my head. just quickly ask your CBAs. I is this the first year of the three year? >> No, this is the second year of a three-year. Okay. Thank you. >> Y >> So I will not spend a lot of time on this because it it really is, you know, baked into that that last slide. This is our special
099education out of district costs, right? 18% 10% these are estimates. Um and there's a lot of fluidity to this and it I've been at town meeting with many of you and and the the week before town meeting a student may have come back into district or student moved out of district or a student came into the district. We just don't know and then when we become fiscally responsible uh you know these are conversations that are really a challenge. We don't know what our numbers will look like, but I'm just showing you the incremental cost increase of about 791,000. That does not include potential reimbursement of the circuit breaker. I'll be clear. That's on another slide. So, but athletics and the reason I bring this up because we don't talk enough about this. I don't talk
100enough about this. I know in um what's going on here, Michael? There we go. Um, in my 16 years here in the town, I can tell you we do not talk much about funding and have not talked much about funding athletics appropriately in our budget. We've made significant conscientious decisions on how to keep our classrooms running, how to add electives, how to ensure our students are getting the skills they need when they leave our high school to be successful elsewhere. Whether it's in work, trade schools, college, military, we do a hell of a job. I say that very proudly as a superintendent of schools. We do a great job. However, there are deficiencies within our budget and with how we've approached things. Uh, I believe athletics is a significant component to having a well-rounded experience
101as well as the arts. We made significant investments this year in our budget in the arts programs at Mendes and at Warren or Mendes and at the middle school. I'm proud of that. Athletics, our operating budget, what's in our appropriated budget? It's 384,000. What does that cover? Could be salaries of the athletic director. Could be a little bit of transportation. Chris will correct me if I'm wrong. Uh stipen positions for coaches. We collect about 290,000 in users fees, but the actual cost to run the athletic program is closer to 975,000. So we we're typically running a $300,000 deficit. So you're like, Jim, how the heck do you then close that deficit? Well, at the end of the year, we're literally Chris I say we and I say we, it's usually somebody else. Um, Chris literally
102is going through line item by line item of the chart of accounts to determine, hey, do we have thousand $1,000 savings here? Oh, great. Thanks. We do. Let's apply it to the athletic. Do we have $2,000 of savings for this teacher? Because they didn't. We anticipated they were getting and moving to another step, but they didn't. Okay, we can apply it to this is again it's a game you don't want to play very often and that's similarly with enterprise funds with revolving accounts you don't want to do that too often so here we have an example Claudia of what you were asking right $450 for ice hockey $350 for alpine ski football's 300 cheerleading all the others all those are 290 so really 290 is the number you look at uh for the most Um,
103and then we have co-op teams that it depends on the the school system, depends on who owns the co-op, if you will. They determine what that rate is. Um, for and I just gave a little snippet here. Westboro, a very similar size school district, very similar community terms of um, you know, economic, socioeconomic status. They budget 515,000 in their operating budget. and they use 255,000 from user fees. So they're they're at the range, you know, they're alreadyund, you know, $40,000, $130,000 more than we are just in their operating to start. >> Does that include maintenance? >> No, that's just that's just running the programs, >> transportation, coaches, and I'll give an example because uh This is hard to read and this is why I think it'll be important for you to get. I break everything
104down and my athletic directors do not like me. Uh partly because I am a former accountant and I want to break things down as granularly as I can to make sure that whatever we're doing we're doing, you know, the best way possible. So, in this instance, this is from last fall, right? Last fall, and it's even hard for me to read here. Um, last fall we had 557 student athletes. Okay, that's middle and high. We have 850 high school kids, 600 plus. So, we got 1,400 kids. Well over a third are playing and participating in extracurricular sports. We have waivers for those families who can't afford it the you know for the cost of playing sports because it is expensive. Um, and and what I do is I break it down by sport. And but
105really what you want to focus on is we brought in $120,000 in users fees at the bottom in the yellow, the third row over from the left. 120,000. It cost us 257,000 to actually run the programs. Okay, so that's pretty significant. So, we're we're starting the fall with $137,000 deficit in athletics. And I'll tell you, athletics certainly matters, right? I we get more conversation with athletics than we do Oh, sorry, I can't do that. when I share the um the slide deck with you, you can click on that link and it actually breaks it out for a full year and you can see each season how that deficit gets created of 300,000. It's pretty significant. >> Could you talk a little bit about waiverss? How how are waiverss um >> achieved and are they achieved
106it if if a child plays by family, by sports? >> It's by sports. So you'll notice Claudia on the the third one over or the fourth one over from the left. So golf for instance had three students qualify for a waiver. So, they have to fill out paperwork, whether it's free and reduced lunch, whether it's, you know, we we have the ability to to to look at specific um data within our student management system to say, "Okay, this family's going to qualify." They ask, they qualify, they fill out a form, we go through the process. So, so it's significant. So, there's 30 or $23,000 worth of waiverss for student athletes. Significant. So, chapter 70, for those who are new to the table, this is the state aid that comes in. Um, and what you'll notice
107is Michael and I have always been pretty conservative with our number because you you just don't know. Like we're town meeting in May and in July the state finally passes a budget. So, that number can can shift one way or the other. We had a huge increase in 2024 of 15.82% in chapter 70. The student opportunity act the state government said listen we have yet to actually fully fund chapter 70 and a lot of work with with President Spila for years and years on this and finally it got through. Well, it's now tied to, so we're at a certain level now. It's tied to enrollment, the incremental costs of English language art or English language learners, uh, free and reduced lunch, whether it's um the, um, special education. So, there there are lots of little
108factors that go into determining determine what child and how much you get per child. I think it's fair to say based on what I'm hearing out of the state house that hey, a 1% increase is probably where we're going to land right now. That's $50. They start at the state level at $50 a child if you're held harmless, if you will, meaning your numbers really are not significantly changing or your numbers went down and you basically get whatever they start with $50 a child. that determines your chapter 70, but it can't be less than what you had the year before. That being said, last year they adjusted it to 100, 115 maybe um per child. So, there's movement. It's it's not significant enough where Michael's going to count on $1.6 million in revenue like we
109had in FY24. It's not going to happen because one, our numbers aren't changing dramatically like they did. This was coming out of CO. We had a we had a dip initially coming at 21 22 and then all of a sudden CO really people felt a little more comfortable and they came back in in droves. That helped in addition to the s uh the student opportunity act. This this is in the budget book from last year. You just noticed that we're we're spending um $3.3 million in revolving accounts. Circuit breaker, which is the special education reimbursement for out of district students. Um rental, I went through these building rental, international tuition, school bus revolving, school choice. You'll notice our projected balance is really where, you know, I want to land on this page. Really, it's like
110we're we're projecting to have fewer and fewer dollars to run the system to balance our budget. If we had to use 1.1 $1 million like we're using this year for school choice next year in FY27, we'd have about $500,000 left over. I'm assuming we're going to get a few few more dollars than we anticipated revenue-wise here based on the number of students who have actually um school choiced in. I don't know what it looks like because they could decide to choice back out in the next, you know, month, but that number could go as high as 350,000 for school choice revenue. So, you'd add another 150 in. So, you get the four 410, use a million, you only have 400 left. It's it's a perilous situation to be in to rely on revolving accounts to
111balance your budget. Student enrollment, you can see um that 142 coming out of COVID increase, right? That is really when it hit for the 23 24 budget. Uh when they started passing the S SOA, um that increase really helped us. We're up 12 kids from last year as of yesterday. Um, we I mean I look at enrollment every single day. It's probably drives me nuts and drives everybody else nuts that I look at it every day, but I do because I want to know where we stand. And this is, you know, I think we're flattening out a little bit, but I'm concerned obviously with continued housing building projects. What's that going to look like? There is no true metric that determines what and how many kids are going to be coming in and what that
112profile of the child looks like. We just don't know. Uh, you know, this is not updated because the they have not finalized the FY24 per pupil district, but last year to Joe's point, you know, our number 16,000 per child. I told you this puts us in the bottom 10% in the Commonwealth, what we spend per child. All those other towns above us are, you know, spending more. Holliston's number is going to jump ahead of us because they did pass an override. So all of I would say the majority of those communities have passed overrides in the past five years. Not in the budget. I haven't even talked anything about capital. I haven't said a word about this. I'm I'm talking to about a $2.5 million operating deficit. We have capital needs of $12 million. Roofs,
113modular replacement. Who's got kids at Warren? We bought those unintelligers 12 years ago. They had a 5-year lifespan. They'd already had a 5-year lifespan. We bought them used. We continued to refurbish. Turf replacement. Again, the turf's been in 14 years. Laptops. Um the uh I don't use I don't use um I use Macs, but apparently you know the the the operating system now, Windows, you have to have an updated computer. Um you can't utilize the ones that we had for our teaching staff, student management system, uh district data analyst. Like these are all things that actually bring in revenue to me as well. like a data analyst helps us determine what we can do. Um, Chromebooks are for kids. Um, boiler, I think the little little munchkins that get away deserve a little stay away
114from, uh, rain, which is a roof, and deserve to have a little heat. Um, but, um, that's that's really where I am. Uh, and I will open up for questions. I probably took a little longer than than Michael wanted me to. Um, but I I can only say that the working partnership that we've had with the three boards uh has been unbelievable. We are an envious community around the Commonwealth and and I think the school committee would tell you the same when they go to um you know we have our upcoming superintendents and school committee conference in a couple weeks. Folks look at us and say, "How do you do it?" and and it's I don't know how we do it sometimes except it's really a collaborative effort in that this community has invested in
115schools it's invested in capital projects public safety facility a new minds it's invested in general government understanding public safety is critically important but at some point we come to a crossroads and I'm sure and We thought that crossroads was here a long time ago. We've we've survived to get to where we are. Uh I couldn't be more proud of of our budget in terms of in the support the town has given us. We've averaged about a 5% increase in my 12 years. It's pretty significant. That's what makes people envious of us. How do you do it? It's it's at some point those revenues from building projects are coming to a standstill. and what does it look like? What does this community want and desire? You know, I want the early kids to have a great
116education. I want everyone in this room who have grandchildren and children in our schools to continue to expect the same level of success that we have, if not make it better. That's the challenge before you in this community. As a taxpayer in another community who's building a brand new $300 million high school, I get it. It's tough. It's hard. And my community votes for overrides as if they're like Pez candy, you know. Uh, and it is what it is. But, um, that's sort of the, you know, the situation we're in today. So, I will leave it there. If you have questions specifically, um, happy to answer them and I will make sure you get the the slide deck as well. >> Yeah. >> Thank you. First of all, this is great. Sure. Exactly. Can you
117pull the microphone? >> Oh, of course. I'm so sorry. I'm not used to this. I apologize. >> Thank you. Um, thank you again. Um, one one thing we debate from time to time in finance committee is um, we talk about other towns >> like this town, this town does this, and this town does this, and then we talk about what that town's doing, and then we can >> nitpick and say, well, they're not exactly like us for this reason, which happens, right? And that's fair. But, you know, in your experience and and just based on what you've seen and doing the role and looking at these numbers, I is there which of these towns should we potentially examine more closely that have been down this road that maybe have done it what you would consider
118to be the right way? And as a follow-up to that, >> are there any cautionary tale towns that have gone too far and we should also examine that with the same level of vigor and energy? Yeah, I I think somebody asked me this question today. Uh actually Chris and I were in a union meeting this afternoon and we're talking about stipen positions and about looking at coaching salaries. Like who would I really compare Ashlin to, right? And who's done things the right way or >> it's it's really comparable because you go on the state department website and they say, "Okay, I don't know like Bill Ricka, Burlington are all towns that are similar to Ashlin." No, they're not. >> They're absolutely not. I mean, have you been to Burlington? Have you seen the the industry
119that exists there? Have you been to Denim? They've got more money than anybody. Right. But Westboro, although they do have some commercial, right? Uh I think Grafton, >> I think Mendine Upton, the Nipmuk school district, I think are really high quality districts that are worth looking at in terms of the work they've done to to even consider passing overrides, etc. Cautionary Tail, one of my my favorite superintendents, um, is in Franklin. They've had three overrides fail in the past year and and and now their users fees for athletics. There's $1,000 to play football and hockey and like it's out of this world. It's it's a it's a challenge for sure. Um, >> you said that was Franklin. >> Franklin. Yeah. Excuse me. Yep. And and they're they're a much bigger district than ours. They're probably
120almost twice the size. >> but again, it's a community that has values education. It's a excellent system, but they've not been able to pass an override there. For the last couple years, they've tried. Um Lucas is a good friend of mine, the superintendent. He's like, "Jim, I don't know what to do." Like failing by 10 votes or 20 votes, it it's close, but right. Um but I would say those are the three three communities that I think um the school committee might have a different um perspective on that. Mark does a lot with school districts and communities and towns and with his work and um but locally it's hard, right? NIT just passed. Hollison just passed an override. Are they worth looking at? Sure, they're a little smaller, but it's it's a local district. Um
121Medfield DS, they don't they don't go for overrides. Um but they can't get a building passed, which is interesting in Medfield. Um, so it's a it it's >> and it's like a part of the equation like I feel from from being here the last time or even as far back as when the high school was built. >> Um, but do you remember the last time we did collaborate with other communities? We we researched it. Um, some of us on school committee um met with people uh school committee members from other communities that had successfully like Grafton, remember we had good relationships with them, got all kinds of input on what they did. we were in people's homes. Uh I I think there's a piece of it for me anyway, and it's anecdotal. I don't have
122anything to prove this, but it's just like getting into the head of the voters in this town. You know what I mean? Like we feel like we did a lot of like the things. Um and I'm sure we didn't do everything perfectly and maybe there's a different way to structure it that um piqus people's interests, you know, if they have line items or something that we didn't do. But um but there's this this thing about like why are are the people of Ashland like resistant to it even when we do that homework and try to understand the best approach and it still seems like it's not being you know accepted. >> I'd love to hear from some people in the room why they feel like that is the way that it is. >> Or maybe
123if you disagree. >> I I'd like to go ahead. >> No. No, actually I'm not going to not going to answer that question, but um I actually had a question for you, Jim. Sure. Uh first off, again, thank you very much for your presentation. Just as a point of clarification, I'm not trying to de dim diminish the importance of athletics, but we've been talking a lot about athletics fees and and such, but I just want to make sure that folks at home have a clear idea what the material impacts will be >> uh with the def def the deficits that you say will run like what are going to be the academic sure impacts of that as well. >> Yeah. No, that's a great question and and the only reason I'm talking a little bit
124more about athletics uh is because it's not something we have talked about in 16 years. It just hasn't. Uh and and and I think that's an important piece that we have to make sure we fund all of our programming and and I again that's just part of a whole comprehensive educational experience in a in a public school system. That's what I believe in terms of what could be a drastic again I don't want to create this firestorm of this is what would happen but think about 1.5 $2 million deficit that that Michael says to me or FINCOM and the school committee says hey Jim we've got to cut 2 million from your budget to make it balance that only means teaching staff that's what it means it means administrative ative staff too. And I don't
125want to like last year in our budget process, we reduced our admin team by one. Um, and I think that's really where you look first, but it could have detrimental impact on curriculum, reading specialists, co coaching specialists, all those things matter to our our students, but it's personnel and it will move our system backwards. To what degree? I'm not sure, Makita. But we're talking assume you lose 20 educators. That's pretty significant in this community. >> Class sizes go up. >> Yeah. 100%. >> We lost all the libraries at one point. >> Yeah. Yeah. I think one of the ways to think about it is we talk a lot a lot about closing gaps, right? And achievement gaps and stuff like that. and to lose positions would make that nearly impossible to continue that effort, right?
126Because you you you'd be struggling more and more to just meet to to teach the the the needs, right? And so, um that's that's for me at least that's the biggest fear. isn't like, okay, we'd have to raise a fee here. We'd have to do those are impactful for sure, but >> one of the things we continually talk about is making sure we close the gaps >> and uh significant cuts would would have a really big impact there. I think they would probably widen. They wouldn't we wouldn't even probably be able to keep them where they are. And so that's that to me is is a is the probably one of the easiest things to say that is probably the biggest risk. I agree with Paul and also adding just general student progress. So, you
127know, the gaps for sure will be harder to fill, but as you mentioned, just keeping our students on the same trajectory to continue to make progress is going to be a lot harder and so those gaps will inevitably um become bigger and be more >> Joe. Yeah, thanks Jim. I just want to answer Lor's question about you mentioned something about getting into people's heads and making sure that they understand what's what's going on. >> Do you know how to do that? >> Never mind. >> Yeah. >> All I can say is that in years past when we tried to do an override, we kept on saying we need the money, we need the money, we need the money. And near the end of the fiscal year, >> there were monies available >> that that came
128back. So now the people that >> are listening to us saying, you know, we need this override, we need this override. when in fact well when the true figures came in we didn't need it that resonates big time in in every resident in town that has that that can vote and you know well chicken little and and that and that's that seems to be an issue and people don't forget >> so I' I'd like to weigh in on that um and just for people who don't know me I'm Marcy Culverwwell new member of the school committee also um CFO of a a medical school so Um I spent a lot of my time in in the numbers and the environment we're dealing with from a macro perspective is completely different. We are postcoid the personnel
129cost has increased. That's a fixed cost in the town and the school budget. So that is is totally different. We are in a new supply chain world than we were before. So the cost of goods, shipping, tariffs, all these buzzwords you hear in the media, that's a real cost that's going up. Um, and then the other thing is the the question of what funding we could get from both the state and the federal government is a complete real risk. And you know, the government's shut down right now, so we're not blessed with the executive orders every week of what could change, but that's a real risk. So there's three new risks that exist that did not exist at the time the town did tried for an override before um that we'd have to plan for.
130But the thing that is so key to me when I'm having discussions with people about you know why can't we do what we want to do is the fixed cost is what it is. So to maintain the status quo, we absolutely have to educate people of this is the cost to live in this town, to maintain all the wonderful services that we enjoy for our schools, for our our um other community members with the, you know, the senior center and everything we do, the library, all the things. And so we've got to make a decision as a town. Do we want those services still? And what is the cost of that? And if the revenue is not that fixed cost without any additions of you know any new nice to haves then there's there's that
131and I think it's that simple like that's a new it's just new and everyone sees it on the news so I'm very passionate about the numbers um >> but that's how I was you know Marcy I I think it is that simple but the other piece that's that simple is that everybody is feeling that in their personal lives So now it's not so simple, >> right? That's right. >> Because now it's it's another place where my pocketbook gets hit. >> Um and certainly, you know, I I'm certainly very uh >> totally get it. >> But it's just sort of a reality and I think that that's, you know, part of what we're faced with. I I think that um that is a piece that we have to drive home though. I mean, people need to
132be reminded of that a hundred times over. Um, I think some of the reasons we haven't passed overrides. You know, there's this community is very different from what it was 20 years ago. Um, I think that that was shown when we voted for the public safety building and for the high school. Um, I think the other things that we always need to be thinking about is the additional fees that are placed upon uh families with students. They're and I agree with you Jim 100% that especially in this day and age where kids are on their phones all the time. If they can you can get them in a sport. I think every parent wants their kid outside doing some kind of a sport or some kind of extracurricular activity beyond the school day. We have
133to think about trash fees that people pay their water bills. You know, all those things are in addition to our our tax rate, right? Um one question I I think it is is important to look at other communities. Um, you know, you just look at basically I think mendaupton and it's a couple of thousand dollars more per child. And so now you're talking if that was us getting those $2,000 it would be almost $6 million or you know I don't know exactly but in large number right that would solve our problems. >> And so when I look at the communities too and I see Hollist and Hopkin and they're right in the same neighborhood as us. And now you said Hollist just passed >> right and and Hopkin hasn't. I know they've talked about it.
134So, you know, how do it would be nice if they were way up in the 20 grand per kid, but they're not. So, how how does that compete with what we see in our classrooms versus what their students getting in their classrooms? Is there a way to differentiate? >> There are a couple ways, right? I mean, we can look at standardized test scores. we can look at AP scores like like again we're looking at the the end result of our of our students and and what it looks like in the end. Um and I would say we're as successful as as any district around with our students who are metriculating out of the Ash public schools. Um and that includes you know Hopkin, Dover Sherburn, Medfield. Like if you look at those numbers um we're
135there. I think Hopkinson's an interesting scenario interesting case. They have they've invested a lot of money in their building projects, right? They built a brand new elementary school and as it opened, they still needed to go back and invest in another couple million because it was too small because they didn't anticipate Legacy Farm and all of the number of students who were coming out of there. So, so I I think that impact isn't necessarily doesn't necessarily equate to the per people cost of running the school system. Yeah. >> So, sorry. >> I was going to say I um first of all, I I I agree with Marcy. I think that um I think I think the standard of what people's expectations are have changed a lot over the last you know it's been nine years
136since we've last gone for an override and things have drastically changed. Our population has changed quite a bit as we know and our population is going to change more. I know you were looking at the enrollment numbers. You know, when we think about these 40B projects, one of the one of the things that I don't know, you know, it's really well known, I'm sure, you know, you're looking at these numbers, but for a 40B project, 10% of those units have to be three-bedroom um apartments. So, when we talk about a 250 apartment complex at the Mill building, you're talking 25 units of uh of three threebedroom units. So, you know, you're you're definitely, you know, I know we we've talked in the past about the the um the delta that happened when Cirrus was built
137and it wasn't quite what we expected, >> but I think this is a very different um I think it's I think it's going to be very different simply because >> these are going to encourage families to to come to Ashlin, which you know I I I love to have families come to Ashland. Um, but it's this controlled way that we can plan for all of this and and I think, you know, I was so that was that was one thing and then I have one other question for you because I I know you kind of glossed over the the capital needs and I think that that is incredibly important >> because if you think about the list that you had and I assume those are things that need to be addressed in the next three
138years, that's $12 million in capital. That's additional $4 million per year if you spread it out. So now we're talking about a six and a half million dollar deficit give or take. So it's it's you know it's it's the education it's it's it's all the things that that go into the budget, but I think that that capital is is just as important because we can't we can't keep pushing that aside. >> Sure. I don't disagree with it. >> Yeah. So >> So thank you. >> Yeah. And just uh I want to get switch over to Michael, but to go back to your point, Joe, about the optics of I I think we we try to do not an alarmist point of view and we don't try to say the sky is falling, but when somebody
139wants it when we say we need an override, we we are essentially in some way saying the sky is is about to fall, right? And so when we then go have town meeting and there's $350,000, that's what happened nine years ago, right? was I think it was 350 was the number but this is the challenge everything's complicated right and so responsibly we still have to be doing that because the department the division of local services says we should have so much in free cash and that's the proper budgeting thing. So how does that you know it is that's the challenge is this is complicated >> and it would be irresponsible irresponsible of us to go over that cliff to the point where >> it's that dire at that point because now if we're not meeting
140that threshold of what they're saying we should have for free cash and now we're we go and we try to get it credited again and now our credit is bad and now we're hey we need an override, we've already done a lot of damage. And so, how do we balance that? And I think that's part of the plan. We really need to make sure we're thoughtful about is we we need to be able to articulate it without causing damage that we have to then come back from, right? Uh but how do you do that? How do you get people to feel the pain or understand the consequences of making these decisions, but at the same time balance it? building projects are now fully hitting our our our tax bills and everybody's tax bill just you
141know went up in the last year and and I felt it everybody feels it right so we have to be thoughtful of that and and there's a lot of things that are complicated to balance uh but to go back to your point that is an optic even nine years ago when I had some idea of what things were like and not as probably as indepth as I do now I it made me look look funny at it it's like hey why are we doing this now I have a better understanding now of why we do these things. But, you know, I'm I'm kneede in all this and I'm I know it to a certain extent, but I'm learning still. But, we need to have how do we get the other, you know, 12,000 voters who
142don't have that opportunity to spend all that time and energy on it? How do we message it properly to them? I think that's the biggest challenge is is >> and it's a catch 22 respect to that because if we lose the credit that we have. We're spending more money for bond ratings and and everything else. So now that compounds our our debt so we're not gaining anything by actually we're losing them. I'm sure Michael will talk about that. Thank you. Got to bring this down a little bit. So hi everybody. Um, so before I really get into the meat and potatoes of this, um, I just want to thank and acknowledge Superintendent Adams and his staff and, uh, also all of you. Um, as well as our team. Um we are where we are today
143and we are as successful as we are by virtue of the team that we have here. Um it's one of the things that has kept me here is our team collectively. Um staff, board members, volunteers. Um and it's one thing that I know is going to help us continue to be successful in the future regardless of what happens. Um, we are hardworking, we are creative, um, we have a can do attitude that really I think is unmatched um, throughout the Commonwealth. As Jim alluded to or Jim said, I I experienced the same thing at the MMA conference. You know, how are you doing all of this stuff? You know, h how how, you know, because they look at the metrics that I'm about to show you tonight and they're wondering like how does this work?
144And it's not magic. It's people. It's people. And we're going to talk about a lot of numbers. We've already talked about a lot of numbers. You're going to see charts and graphs and all that good stuff. But there is one primary question that you all need to be asking yourselves tonight and everybody needs to be asking themselves. And Marcy alluded to it and so did Brandy is what kind of quality of life do you want to have? That's what it's all about. And that encompass quality of life encompasses a lot of things. You know, it encompasses the costs that you pay, taxes, fees, but it also encompasses the services that you provide or that we provide for you on your behalf. It also encompasses the events, the camaraderie you see at the corner spot and
145the experiences that you have as a citizen or excuse me, as a resident of this community. And so that is the primary question as we go through tonight and we go through this discussion as it extends throughout the budget season is what kind of quality of life do you want and what are you willing to pay for it? >> Does anybody want to take a shot at what quality of life means to them? >> I will. Um sure. you know, just from a the perspective of living here for so long, it's uh I think it comes down to health, safety, education, community, um certainly services that we enjoy, whether it's, you know, my street getting plowed or coming down to the town hall here because I need to file some sort of a form or
146what have you, and having that being done efficiently. Uh it just means being um being solidly aware that the place that I am residing and living is uh is is the that my myself and my family belong from a from a comfort and um also affordability perspective to um that's how I'd pro probably sum it up for the most part. >> Yeah, I think a lot of people would feel similarly. >> Yeah. >> You know, it it's what's that feeling you get when you wake up in the morning and like, you know, you go outside and you see your neighbor, you know, you know your trash is going to be picked up. You know your street's going to be plowed. you know, when your kid gets on the bus is going to a safe school
147system that's providing a top quality education, you know, that's a that's that's quality of life. That's part of quality of life. But we are here to talk about numbers um as well. And so, as Jim talked about, I just want to kind of say this too, projections, budget projections, they are as much an art as they are a science. Marcy, you know this as as as a CFO. Um, you know, you're taking the best data that you have generally from the past and trying to factor in what, you know, what do you want to to include as part of your projections moving forward and you come up with some numbers and generally I've been very very conservative. I still am conservative, but this is what the financial picture looks like today. Okay, if we look
148in into we're in FY26 right now. Now, if we look going into FY27 and beyond, okay, so the primary drivers as we've talked about is we have the municipal budget going up 2 and a half%. And whatever that number is, whatever our collective bargaining agreements are, whatever our non-union increases are, whatever our fee and license costs are, we make it work within that number. It generally consists of about $350,000 every year. now in the general fund or excuse me in the general government side. Okay. And then we also have um the school department as Jim mentioned going up 3.75%. But what about some of the other things? Well, we've got KEFtech which we take uh prior year u numbers and we extrapolate that out through FY31. Um we look at the health insurance numbers, pension
149numbers. Obviously, we can't gauge what those are going to be exactly moving forward. But what we do is we look at what are the increases in the past. You know, what is that moving average look like and then can we use that to project into the future? And then we also look at things like, you know, we know what our 2 and a half% is going, you know, we know what that figure is going to look like on a base levy, but the big big um unknown is new growth. And I've talked about this before. New growth is what you get when you bring on new buildings. When you add an addition to your home, when you add on a deck, all of that factors into new growth. And when you had a project like
150Cirrus, you saw new growth numbers go up to like 1.2 million a year. And that is money that is not you not only get that year, but it gets added on to the tax levy. And you continue to see that each year. Um, but over the last few years that's dwindled down to 400, you know, $500,000. Big differences. Big differences. So, when you factor that all in, you know, what you end up with is, um, basically I use new growth estimates of $500,000 moving forward each year, just kind of a base amount. Um, now I have the levy limit right now at uh 27 going at 60.5 million and it grows to 67.7 million over five years. But our expenses, they're going to continue to outpace our revenues. They already have. We've already talked about
151that. I I'll review that a little bit. Um, and so what happens is that, you know, in 2031 we have revenue of $90 million, but we have expenditures of $98 million. Again, that's five years from now. You bring it back to next year, you know, we're looking at uh a revenue number of $81 million and an expense figure of 83.6. So about a $2.5 million deficit for FY27. That's what we're looking at in the immediate future. Um, as you're looking at these, there's one thing I I I want to introduce as a caveat. This does not consist or does this does not include the bond amounts, the taxpayer amounts for the Mendes school because we have a ban, which is a short-term borrowing that ends next year. We're going to be bonding that long term
152next year. Um for is it what? We've we've done how many years of ban Cindy? Three. >> So it'll be a 27year bond because it was a 30-year authorization. Um what happens with an override will determine how we structure that. That's why I haven't included it. you know, we can structure it, work with our financial advisor and, you know, structure more on the front end or and more of a tax increase on the front end versus the back end. But, uh, that's what FY27 looks like, a um a $2.5 million deficit. So, who who here has heard of a 40B project, right? We've got three of them. Um, not only that, we have a number of projects that have been permitted and they haven't been built. So, we have another 40B project that was permitted
153a few years ago, the Arbella at Ashland off Memorial Drive that has not been built. That's in litigation. We have 501 Pond Street at 120 units. We have Homer A, which is at 29 units downtown. you know, when you look at all of those, um, Don, who is, uh, I can't believe I'm saying this, the senior member of our finance team here, uh, in terms of tenure, um, who's been here a year, um, Don has projected, you know, what what kind of tax increase would we look or tax revenue would we look at once all those are built? And conservatively, I think admittedly, that number comes out to 4.2 million. So total. Okay. And so what I did is I actually took not that full amount, but I took $500,000 each year and I added
154it onto that new growth number. So we went from $500,000 each year to a million dollars in new growth each year. So why did I do that? Why did I spread it out? These projects, if they get permitted, the ones that aren't permitted, if they get permitted, everything else, it they're not going to all be built at once. they're going to there's going to be a runway associated to that with that and so that's why I've spread it out a bit. Does that make sense? Does everybody? Okay. And so what does that mean? So that means our new growth number goes from $500,000 a year to $1 million a year in new growth annually. Um so what does that mean? Well, that makes a makes a little bit of a of a impact about 20%
155but it doesn't solve the issue. um we still in FY 2031 will have a $7 million deficit uh after after that gets factored in. You know, if we had a $2.5 million deficit before in FY27, looking at a $500,000 new growth number, if you do some quick math and you put that up to 1 million, our deficit goes to two million. So, still pretty pretty significant. So, that's, you know, scenario number two, if you will, right? What does that look like? And then this past or in FY26, if you recall, as part of our tribe board discussions, what we ultimately decided to do was take 2.2 million out of our rainy day stabilization fund and use it to balance the budget. And so what if we continued that practice? What if we continued to fill
156those deficits with stabilization funds each year? those that's onetime funding each year. You know, in FY27, again, I'm using those enhanced new growth figures, the the million dollars, you know, that would be a $2 million transfer in FY27. Um, in FY28, that's a $3.2 million transfer. Okay, that would balance the budget for those years. And then in FY29, it's a $2.8 $8 million transfer, but we still have a significant deficit and our funds are depleted. So, if we continue that strategy and not put money back into the stabilization fund, which you know we have done before using free cash, but that's that is tenuous. Um, we'll be able to balance budgets until FY29. So FY27, FY28, we'll get a couple years relief. So as you can see, it's not really a solution. It's it's more
157like a bridge if we decide to use that. And again, they're finite resources, the stabilization fund, and they really should be used for emergencies and onetime expenses. >> Michael, can I ask a question? >> Sure. How much um of the town but or the overall Ashlin budget is funded from external sources? So the schools have some grants, you know, that come in chapter 70. Are there other external one like that could have a risk of going away? Um >> Oh, Marcy, that was a good segue into into what I'm about to get into. >> Oh, it's like >> magic. We did not have a conversation beforehand. >> Okay. Because that this is a question like okay if you don't have it in tax revenue how can you I mean are there other ways we can
158make up for it or why can't we just make cuts you know why can't you know we've got all these new faces right you know not necessarily talking about you know exchanges you know people think I think sometimes that they're all ads not just uh replacements but as you'll see we've already implemented significant you know budget reductions or not necessarily reductions but kept things stable and we've already maximized a lot of our alternative revenue sources. So, let's talk about overall what we've done to go ahead and um and go ahead and balance the budget overall because I think, you know, we're having these serious conversations and I think I said at the beginning, it might seem like a surprise, but we have been working up to this for several years. Um, it started in FY
1592019 uh when we cut the municipal efficiency fund at $25,000. Who remembers the municipal efficiency fund? Yeah, I didn't think so either. It's it's kind of a nerd thing, a municipal nerd thing. Um, it was a fund that we had set up and where departments would submit proposals for projects that were relatively small in scale that uh or cost that they proved could provide a return on investment. It was kind of like a bank. So, one of the things we did is we got the pole pads. You remember you see those at town meeting. You know, instead of having all those people there checking people in, we have the poll pads. It makes it a lot more efficient. But, you know, we started getting some lean fiscal times and we decided to cut that. Um,
160in 2021, we reduced our payo capital that we had worked hard to get up to 750,000. We then reduced it uh down by $250,000. And then in 2023, we reduced it again to zero. we reduced it by $500,000. So in three years we went from a $750,000 PGO capital line in the budget to zero. Um in 2023 we also switched our sped stabilization fund. So we were using it at the end of the year to basically any kind of you know unaccounted for expenses that were coming in that we hadn't planned for. we now anticipate that and put that in front uh basically of the year in in the beginning of the year uh and that helps us balance balance the budget and then we started getting into some serious one-time fund usage and some
161serious deficits. Um, so with the ARPA allocation for budgetary purposes, I put 3.5 million in here. That's actually a mistake. That was the total amount we used. So, a lot of that was per, but 818,000. Again, that's a I need to correct that was actually used uh for ARPA to balance the budget or from ARPA to balance the budget. And then we also used overlay surplus, which again is a very very finite uh resource. I won't get into what overlay surplus is, but we tapped into it for 350,000 in 2025 and 150,000 in uh 2026. And then finally, the big the big one, we had to go to the stabilization fund, you know, no magic anymore. Like no no no no magic happening. Um $2.2 million came out of the stabilization fund, the rainy day
162stabilization fund in order to balance our budget. Um, this you don't h I included a sheet in the back uh because I don't think many people could read this. So, so I went ahead and included in the back and it's basically your FY26 budget uh revenue figures including it also includes 25 and 24 and I've highlighted where those one-time funds um are seen in that chart. But to Marcy's point, like we have maximized other revenue sources and grants and revolving funds, things like that. So for our fire department, we used $1.3 million out of the ambulance revolving fund last year. So we didn't have that resource until like FY17 or FY18, but we have increasingly used that to help balance our fire department budget. So that 1.3 million, about 450 of that was for an
163ambulance. The rest of it was for salaries and wages in our fire department. So a significant amount. Um our recreation revolving fund funds the vast majority of our recreational operations at 505,000. the meals tax, which um which we passed back in 2013, didn't go into effect until 2014, that provides $300,000 for us to provide services. Our building revolving fund, uh we tap into it for $142,000. Animal control, so we have a shared service agreement. We regionalized with Hopkin to bring in some extra revenue, 114. other sources like the STOP grant that we use to fund uh one of our positions in human services. Um you know some other things those total up to $185,000. So I mean you can see this adds up to $2.6 million which represents almost 20% of the general fund budget
164for municipal departments, municipal services. That's a lot folks. That is a lot. Marcy, does that help answer your questions? start. >> Okay, you got a little bit more more want a little more detail there. >> Give me the Excel files. >> Okay. Um and let's talk about what our staff looks like. Okay. Um so we have added positions, right? No, no doubt as this town has grown, we have had to add positions. So we've added positions in police and fire. We've added positions in library. But you know what? We had to do that because if we did not, we were going to lose state aid. We would lose our certification. We were on waiverss for many, many years and we would lose certification and state aid if we didn't uh fund that the library at
165a certain amount. You know, community center, we've certainly we started a human services department. It's a vitally needed resource for this community, especially as our population changes and in DPW as well. But if you look at how the town has grown versus how our staff has grown, it's virtually identical. So in 2007, we had one employee per 132 residents. In 2025, we have one employee per 127 residents. And one important point here is all of this staffing, the staffing increase at least on the general fund, 95% of it has been funded through outside sources. part of best position, our communications position that comes completely from outside sources. Nine of our firefighters are funded completely through outside sources. Sam, our sustainability coordinator, who does a ton of work bringing in grants into this town and bringing
166a sustainability lens to everything we do that's funded through agger on the aggregation program. We have maximized as much as we can with outside resources. And then the key difference is in 2007, what infrastructure projects did we do back in 2007? Nothing. We didn't do sidewalks. We didn't do really do roads. We didn't do water sewer work. We certainly didn't do community development projects like the Riverwalk. I mean, we had just completed building a high school, a community center, and we did some renovations here, but that was it. I've looked through the town meeting warrants. I've asked everybody who's been here. We didn't do anything. And we're playing catchup now to a certain extent. Just ask our DPW and how many water main breaks they go on. And then, you know, you look at what
167we look what our departments look like compared to other communities and what they're able to provide. And so I use our old friend Sudbury. We're back to Sudbury, right? And I know, oh gosh, how could you use Sudbury? Oh my gosh, they're they pay, you know, twice as much in taxes. It's virtually the same size as us. And I hate to tell you this, back in 2000, excuse me, 1985, average home value for Ashland and Sudbury was virtually identical. And we all know correlation does not mean causation, right, Makita? But Sudbury starts passing overrides, start enhancing services. Why do people move to Sudbury? Why is everything so expensive? because of the schools. I would say services, but you know what? They don't even have sewer. They don't even have trash. You if you want trash
168service in Sudbury, you have to contract a private private hauler. But looking at some of the departments that we do share, you look at our conservation department. So they have nearly twice as many staff as we do in conservation. And yet we do significantly more violations. I think it's probably four I think it was four times as many violations, you know, that require ongoing enforcement, ongoing action. And what makes our team so dang special is that they do more with less. So, our our our conservation agent, Becca, anybody who knows her knows she lives and breathes this stuff. She's also our tree warden. She also works with land stewardship. She does stuff, you know, with some of our properties that we've owned or that we own and she also helps with storm water and she
169also does all these educational programs. That stuff is not assigned to the Sbury staff. Looking at our planning department, they've got twice as many FTEEs and yet they do half as much as we do. You know, we if you look at the different type of permits, a planning board issues and a zoning board issues, you know, special permits are the one in 40bs are the ones that take the most time, take an inordinate amount of time. Um Paul, I think you got a family member that probably attest to that, you know, but um you know, it's a lot more in terms of workload, but our planning staff also work on projects. It's a little bit different. They don't have like a pres a special projects person the way a lot of communities do. In our
170building department, again, half the staff um bringing in, you know, 59% more revenue. Now, a lot of that's, you know, can be out of their hands in terms of what comes in, but they still have to do the work to inspect it. So, we talked a little bit about T. So before I actually before I jump on, does anybody have any questions about what I've shared so far? Okay. So let's talk about some comparisons with other communities. And I think that is important because while while this discussion is mainly about the quality of life we want here, it's important to look at what other communities are doing so we can show value. That's important. We need residents to know that, hey, we're already a good value. And so, if you choose to invest more with
171us, you're in you're making a smart decision. You're making a smart investment. So, I usually show the average single t family tax bill, and we're, you know, probably in the bottom, you know, third, you know, maybe at the top of the bottom third, if that makes sense. Geez. Um, probably probably an easier way to say it's fifth or sixth from the bottom. But what I want to look at is what's the growth rate look like in the tax bill. So if you look at the average single family tax bill from 2016 and you compare it to 2025, how much has it grown during that period? And so we're still smack we're like smack in the middle. So our tax bill has grown 35.46%. in that time period uh compared to you know some of the
172other communities the 17 other communities which I've chosen which range from Marboro at the bottom to Milis at the top in terms of growth and average single family tax bill. So why did I choose these 17 other communities? It's because those are the five communities that immediately surround us and the communities that surround them. And so why did I choose those? when you have communities like, you know, Sherburn, obviously very wealthy communities, but then also, you know, uh, Marlboro, um, and Framingham because we buy the same materials from the same vendors. We compete for the same people all within that region. And so we have to pay competitive wages. We have to pay prevailing wages. We have to pay prevailing rates for services and goods. That's why those are chosen. >> Michael, just on on
173that chart, um is that just the base levy increases or for example our building projects the tax bills? Is it is it the end tax bill or you just talking about levy increases? >> It's the end tax bill. Okay. >> So that includes debt exclusions, things that we've added on over the years. And so I wanted to do a little bit more analysis and then look at okay we talk about the growth in tax bills but let's talk a little bit about affordability and what is the growth in our per capita income as well. So I compared those two and so out of the 18 communities Ashlin is right in the middle. So it's it's a little bit better than average. It's number 10. Um and so the differential is 15.7%. So Ashley on average
174Ashlin residents have seen their income increase 15.7% you know more than their tax bill has increased. Is that does everybody understand that? Okay >> so that that's the average right? Right. >> So that's everybody. So if we had people on one end of the spectrum who had dramatically greater increases then that would raise that number. Right. Yeah. Increases in >> in uh income growth. >> Yes. Correct. >> Right. Because one of the things I'm kind of thinking about is you know are is the stratification that maybe we see in the country reflected in Ashland too in terms of wealth. Right. >> Yeah. I I think Claudia I don't have the data here for that but but but my instinct is that yes and I think every community is seeing that. >> Um >> some communities
175probably more than others. Maybe. Yeah, you're you're probably right. Just I mean, look at this. I mean, if you look at the ones that had the tax rate or their tax bill grow faster than their income, you know, those are Westboro, Wayland, and Weston, right? But if you look on the other end, you know, the ones where their income rate was significantly more than the tax bill increase, you're looking at Southboro, Upton, and Rounding at the top proving that the rich do get richer sometimes as Sherburn at 82%. Mike, if I can just follow up on that because I was having the same thought that Claudia was examining the median figure, right, which gives us a better sense of that. I think is going to be important for us to understand sort of where our
176community as a whole really is. >> Okay. So median would be important as opposed to just the mean. >> I think it's something we need to be cognizant of. >> Yeah. And and and really just be care. take this for what what I'm really intending is you got to be careful on how we position things like this because the residents income didn't increase 15%. the incomes of the residents are up that. In other words, you don't want to message it that you're talking to someone who's struggling to pay their bill, whose income hasn't gone up 15% in that time. So, the the Ashlin resident that has been here for 20, 30, 40 years may not have seen that increase in in in that. And so just just be when I saw that I'm like oh
177because it almost sounds like hey we built these expensive homes people moved into them and now we look at it as in value uh for but when we we're trying to talk to people who are at the different end of that right um that's not going to resonate it's going to it's going to resonate probably counterproductive to a conversation at least it could uh and and I'm not I appreciate you putting that I together. I'm just looking at it when I had a similar reaction, but it was just like, >> well, I don't think it means that everybody's income went up like that. Uh, and I'm concerned with and it's just going to be one data point. I get it. So, I'm we're not going to hang our hat on that, but I just can
178see how someone can can read when when we say that as in like, hold on a second, my income hasn't gone up 15% in that time frame. >> Well, it's interesting. Actually, the income in Ashland has gone up 51%. But not every individual person not you're always going to find you're always going to find that's what the average is. >> So I would So just to piggyback on what Paul said I think the the underlying message of that says well then you can afford to pay more and we don't want to that's not the message that we're that's not the message that we would deliver. The message that we would deliver is, you know, this is what it's going to cost for us to have level service >> and keep the quality of life in
179Ashland, >> you know, and then kind of work the numbers if we have, you know, number whatever numbers we but but I but I kind of I kind of have a little bit of the same kind of cringey thing because >> that to me is like, well, Ashlin's dead center, so you guys can afford to pay more and I don't want to message them. >> Yeah. I mean I mean the way people interpret it is the way people interpret it. I think you know I think ultimately like the question is is what kind of quality of life do you want? >> What I take from this >> we should focus on that's >> but this is what I take from this actually is >> to your point I don't think we should be focusing on
180the growth of income of Ashland. It's our efficiency as a town. >> And so I think you can use these numbers to sell not sell to give that message. It's a different message and it's not about the income. I mean, you need a ratio to look at, but that should be the point of this metric, >> you know, is it our income, you know, the median or, you know, the full average. That's a different conversation. And it does of course mean well, you can pay for it. That's not what we're trying to that's not what this should say. I think it's the efficiency, right? >> Which can only last if we keep up with costs. So, I think you have to like massage these the numbers are great. just the way we message them. >>
181Yeah. >> Some of these things are hard to communicate to the voter >> because the first thing is you look at is oh just I I just want to say the reason this is in here is because I was asked before when I would put up like the single family tax bill. Well, what if our income's right and I didn't mean I didn't mean to throw a monkey. You're you're you're I think you're doing exactly what she's talking about is the what you're trying to convey is efficiency and value, right? Um, and when I I'm just I'm just communicating as we look forward to how we communicate these things. And this is just a data point. >> I looked at it and I'm like I I had that moment of like I can see someone
182who was resistant to the conversation >> looking at that data point and how we might say say things. And I just highlighted as those are the things that we need to be careful of because we can do 99 things really well and the but the person that we need to reach is the one that's going to latch on to the one that resonates poorly with them, >> right? >> And so we just need to be really really almost more mindful of those pitfalls to not step in as few of those as we can. And that's a good point. And I think I think Paul, you also kind of unearthed a little bit of something else there, which is if you want to find a reason to not vote for something or to vote for something,
183you're going to find it. >> You can take any of these numbers and kind of come up with an argument against it. >> But I think to Paul's point, I think in in terms of the it's the messaging of it, not the numbers itself. But I think we also have to be very mindful of how, you know, if we're moving forward and asking the community for an override, a huge chunk of this conversation is going to happen by people who have small snippets of information on social media. >> Exactly. >> And this, I think, is something that can be taken very much out of context and remesaged if we're not very careful in terms of how the data is shared. And so I think that I to your point in terms of the message of
184it, I think we need to be super mindful of how we share the numbers, what they mean, how it's how these things are explained in a way that people can understand because this is really confusing, frankly, like a reading through some of this. >> So I'm not doing a great job. >> No, you're you're doing a great job. >> I'm not clarifying, >> but you're talking to a room full of people who have a baseline of understanding of what these are and it's still confusing, right? So, kind of thinking through ways to really simplify the message of what do these numbers mean? Um, and and why are they important to understand as part of the conversation because I think >> that's fair. >> All of this is going to be taken wildly out of context
185in snippets on social media because that's just what happens now. >> No, Tina. >> And it it can really muddy the waters. Yeah, >> you're you're right. and actually you know hold that thought the simplicity of the message and and I'll come back to that because I think we can learn a lot from some of our previous attempts but uh Shantel again we did not communicate beforehand but this your efficiency comment leads us right to the best overall metric that we can use for overall efficiency which is the um expenditures per capita. So just like you know the per pupil expenditure you know you look at how much money a school district spends on its school system and you divide that by the number of students that it serves. You basically take the municipal or
186not just the general fund but the entire budget and divide it by the capita per cap or the number of people and you get a per capita expenditure number. So very similar to the uh per pupil expenditure. And then I also added on the enterprise funds that you see there in orange just because I know you know some of our fees are higher than than the average like our sewer fee. Water fee is is is reasonable uh very reasonable but our sewer is extremely high. And so I wanted to you know try to get as much of a big picture here as we could. And so that combined expenditure per capita again we always rank towards the bottom if not the bottom. We're we're here second from the bottom. You know, when you look at
187the 18 communities, um Upton, Upton is a unique community going through a lot of changes right now. Um but, um you know, this just shows there has been minimal investment in the community in terms of general operations. Um >> okay, so this this has not that does not have the debt exclusion numbers. Um no enterprise fund extend. >> I believe it does because I believe this takes our whole budget and and divides it by the number of people and so that would include the debt the um debt service numbers. So Yolanda just take the expenses line on that on the budget the total budget and divide it by the by the uh people. >> Okay. So you're saying these this what we're seeing here for Ashton and all these other communities includes debt service for
188all these communities as well as for us. >> Correct. >> Yeah. And and this is just a general comment I was going to have for everyone but you and Jim as we present these things. I would always encourage us to be putting the data sources and links to the data sources at the bottom of these things. So it's not just trust us. Here's the thing. Or if somebody wants to look at it, um, somebody has that question, right? We can't >> we can't spell it out in every single with every single lens. So, uh, you know, Jim and you and and anybody that's going to be putting out something, let's just be really super transparent and have a link to the cherry sheet or whatever it is and maybe a little snippet of we pulled
189this and you know, just how we how we because we're trying to make it simple, but you want people to be able to say, "Hey, I have more questions about it or I'm not just going to trust you, Michael. What is it? How does how do I do this?" And yeah, so just for whenever we're putting these things together, let's let's start to try to do that because that'll be part of our messaging and part of our transparency and trust, right? I think we've built up a lot of trust over over the last decade or so. Um and I think that would just help in the conversations going forward. >> Yeah, that's that's a good point. And um I'll just say, you know, the comparative the comparative data comes from the Massachusetts Department of Revenue.
190Um so yeah, we should include that uh moving forward. Um, I can tell you if you just look at our tax, you know, if you took a $100, right, and you said, "Okay, let's break it down and figure out, you know, how much of a $100 goes to, you know, our departments." You know, nothing here is really out of the ordinary, folks. Um, you know, $55 going to education that includes Keith Tech and the Ashlin Public Schools. That's generally that's generally normal. um you know where we really really get hurt I think sometimes is that benefits and insurance number um and I'll I'll get a little bit more into that um uh one of so what what's driving a lot of this deficit is our fixed costs I think Marcy you mentioned fixed costs earlier
191health insurance you know when we joined the GIC uh back in like 2015 2014 14 2015 we saved a lot of money at the beginning. So we saw an immediate savings and then you know we started seeing less of an increase than our uh our previous health insurance group the west suburban health group and so the GIC became very very attractive to other communities and guess what happens then they start joining them joining the GIC and so that starts pushing up costs and pushing up costs and so I think our the in FY26 we saw an increase of it was over 10% I believe and that's combined with I believe it was about a 10% increase the previous year. Uh there's several different reasons. Believe it or not, the one of the biggest drivers are
192the GL GP1 drugs. You know, those are driving up a lot of the cost. And so the GIC is looking at ways to kind of limit that moving forward, but we're still planning on um we're still planning on um you know, the the projections you know that that we have with it with it going up a continued 10%. um pension obligations are expected to increase and that could actually go up higher uh than than what we have anticipated. We're basing it on previous uh you know previous years and the growth over previous years. But there's two factors that go into the pension assessment. Number one, it's who are our pensioners and people are living longer and people's salaries have have naturally grown over time and so that number is higher, right? And then there's a
193catchup provision. So we're required to be fully our pension system, the Middle Sex County retirement system is required to be fully funded, I believe, by 2042. Middle Sex County has decided they would be fully funded by 2038. So there's a catchup amount included in our regular assessment. So those are the big drivers because, you know, if you look at a health insurance budget of 7 million, you know, you start looking at 10% on top of that. Well, I mean that's 700K just right there. Um, so it can be pretty pretty significant. >> So, and Michael, just for transparency on your previous slide when you had the dollar that $55 did not include the health uh the health and stuff like that. That's that's part the biggest part of that uh component are the school employees.
194So, just to be clear on on that proportion, it's not like, hey, that $55 is not all-encompassing of that cost. And the other one is it's I I know no one in this room is saying municipal and school, but just as as that lays out, it's not 55 isn't all in encompassing. The the overwhelming majority of the health care is uh we have the obviously the most employees. So, >> right, it's a good point. Um, I won't go through all of this just in the interest of time, but um, I can tell you I met with our fire department today. You know, we have grown their staff over the years, but it really hasn't grown in the last five or six. And they're looking at some of these building projects and they're like, "Wait, you're
195looking at population increasing more, you know, more calls, same amount of people. Now you're also talking about big buildings. We've got, you know, we've got six firefighters that are scheduled to be on a shift. Sometimes they drop down to five. not a not a good not a good ratio when you see you know some some buildings you know go up in flames and and you know you know you've only got that many people kind of running in now granted we have mutual aid coming in but it takes a little while for them to get here and you know public safety DPW those are kind of easy to point out right you know those are easy to kind of make the case for you know we need to look at our administrative staff which hasn't grown
196like we need more in our finance Um, you know, there's a lot more requests for information. There's a lot more information desired to help make decisions. Um, that's important. Transparency is important. Um, so we need that. We need, if we want to look at long-term planning, we need to hire additional planning staff. You know, we need to look at pro if you want to look at more projects, etc. We need to hire more administrative staff as well. So that's kind of the whole situation. And so what are we, you know, what how do we get out of this mess, right? H how do we how do we make a change? How do we change the trajectory? Um we could cut or freeze, right? I already have our department's looking at a 5% reduction for 2027.
197They're doing two budgets right now. As Claudia can tell you, I got a fire chief who's panicked. He's he's going around squeezing squeezy toys, telling he wants to cut my budget 5%. You know, it's it's you I talked to Douggee Small today, you know, at DPW. 5% that cuts out virtually everything out of salaries and a bit of salaries as well, you know, but that's the number that we would have to hit to basically shave off our portion of that deficit. Um or we can increase funding for services, look at a levy increase um and invest in new projects potentially, you know, depending on on the amount of that increase. Again, it all comes to but there's no magic bullets, folks. We've moved to the I'll get into this a little bit more, but you
198know, we have made some really really strong reductions in costs. Um as I've shown you previously, we've looked at other sources of revenue. We use other sources of revenue significantly. Like I said, 20% 20% of our general general government budget comes out of grants, revolving funds, and other resources. What we're probably going to have to look at doing is doing something that's kind of in the middle. We'll have to look at a little bit of a levy increase and a cut or freeze as well. You know, what what that looks like. you know, these conversations are going to evolve and um that's how we'll get a little bit more fidelity to that. But if we do go for an override, it's important to talk about what it's going to cost. Okay? And so I said
199a a FY27 deficit is going to be 2.5 million based on our current projections. Well, if you looked at a $1 million increase, so that's an $158 increase on the average tax bill for a home valued at $720,000. So that's the average single family home. If you factor in condos, I think that number goes down to what 690 something around maybe a little bit less. Cindy didn't have it right in front of me. Didn't think I was going to say it. She's looking for that. I I'll go to the $3 million increase. >> Michael, is that an annual figure? >> That I'm sorry. Yes, that is annually. That is annually. And then a $3 million increase uh would be a $475 increase. So a $3 million increase in the levy equals a $475 annual increase
200on the tax bill again for a home valued at $720,000. >> And and Michael, this doesn't take into account this is just on the municipal side. This does not include >> No, this includes everybody. >> Oh, it does? Okay. >> This includes everything. >> I just wanted to make sure we were on the same page. Okay. >> Is there going to be a slide that shows potential cuts and freezes as well? Nope, not yet. >> Has that been I mean if you guys have thought about what the override amount would be I mean if we had to do this given this uh ven diagram. >> Oh >> you guys discussed it or >> I So John talking about big figures. >> Yeah. So 2.5 million. So you look at 30% on the um on the
201um municipal end. So you're talking about $750,000 and then the balance uh on the school end. Yeah. You're talking about significant, you know, 1.8 million for the school department. >> Okay. >> Significant. It's significant. >> Um, and like I said before and Jim has said, you know, we're talking about projections, right? So, there's a number of things that we just don't know right now and we'll get a little bit more fidelity on as as things go, but we'll have to make a decision on what to do for FY27 before we get that info. We're not going to know what the impact of these developments are both from a cost perspective and a revenue perspective until it happens, until they get built. You know, for all the consternation that we have about building projects here in
202town, only one large one, the Asher has been built. You know, again, I'll point out there's I think, you know, including the 40Bs, you've got five projects that are still on the horizon potentially. state aid. Um gosh, 1% that was a killer. Um you know, don't look at the state's going through the same thing. Um so I'm not anticipating, you know, a huge increase there. Uh as I said before, health insurance trends, uh hopefully they'll go down, but if they go down, I'm not expecting them to, you know, completely wipe out the deficit. And again, pension cost trends, you know, those are really, really hard to anticipate, you know, depending on, you know, who's who's still on on on our pensions. Yeah, Joe. >> Mike, with respect to the insurance aspect or um if GIC
203keeps increasing over, you know, over the years, would it be safe to say we may want to start looking at other uh other insurance groups? >> Yes. >> Okay. And and are we actually looking at that now? >> Yeah. When does our this round up with the GIC, Katherine? >> Yeah. And I think we we have requested data. Yeah. So we have to get utilization data first and kind of you know have the experts look at that and see and go basically shop it around. >> Michael is the new growth from the Asher in included. >> Yeah part of it. We we haven't captured all of it. Have we done did we get all of it? >> 100% >> in 2025. Yeah. And then I I have a question um at risk of um being
204purchased about schools or whatever or education, but on on the dollar figure I if or the $100 figure $55 goes to the schools. So I always thought it was $70 out of a hundred. Are you happily surprised or and that includes that includes he tried to do that number you're thinking of I think is one that was trying to capture the healthcare costs and it was a it was a more thing that's that's one of the reasons I brought that up is >> yeah I get it >> it's I don't I don't want that dollar bill to say that's the schools and this is municipal because it's not it's there's a lot that's overlapping right and so the healthcare costs >> I forgot about >> you know what is that $17 probably $15 goes over,
205>> you know, >> back up to seven. >> So, so just finally, I just, you know, we're going to get a lot of questions as this discussion evolves. And you know, two I can already hear because I've already got them is, you know, okay, I see the town spending a lot of money on different projects, you know, sidewalks, buildings, you know, land purchases, you know, why can't we stop doing those, right? Why can't we take the money that we're spending there and direct it towards the operations that we're talking about? And the thing is, the money that you see spent on those items, those are restricted. you can only spend them on like infrastructure projects or open space, you know, whether it's CPA funds or grants or money from the state that has a specific
206earmark. I mean, it is a testament to our team as to how much and our legislative delegation. I got to give Karen and Jack a lot of credit for, you know, being able to help get us those one-time funds for those projects in order to do it. Now, we just don't have enough people to do them all. That's we're kind of in this weird situation where we've got more infrastructure money than we do have people to execute it. Um but that that's you know it's not something to complain about, right? Um but we can't bottom line is we can't use that money to fund operations. And then the other questions people are going to be like, you know, my my taxes are are high already, you know, and so what efficiencies have we done to
207put them into place? And I'm not going to go through all of them, but just to give you some, I talked about the health insurance and the move to GIC. So from 2015 to 23 to 2023, the town saved $10 million by making that move. So we compared the growth in uh the West Suburban Health Group, our old group, and then what we ended up paying through the GIC, $10 million, and that number is being updated to capture the last couple of years. Um, and I anticipate that number will go up. Um, and then the other thing we've done is solar projects. Like our street light budget after we I don't know if you recall, we got a grant, so we didn't even buy them. We bought we we bought street lights with the grant
208and replaced them with LEDs, right? And you know, so our budget is still the same as it was back in 2014. Uh, same thing with our utility budget. We have a number of offsets and credits that we can use. We we directly offset some of that energy use. It's been a significant gamecher for us in terms of fixed costs. And then we've made different personnel um changes and reductions. One of the things we did is when we moved to school department it and we started you know they still work for both the school and municipal ends and I will tell you the only way it works is because we have Paul Carpenter and his team. Um but we reduced you know the number total number of IT positions here from six to one. We had
209one IT position dedicated here and when we moved uh Paul over we didn't backfill that one. >> So the when you say you reduced IT positions from six to one that you you're saying >> I'm sorry six to five. I'm sorry. >> Oh okay it by one. I'm sorry. >> How's that possible? Because I mean I know Okay, great. Okay. >> We cleared that up pretty quickly. >> So we want to make sure that we data we use we want >> Oh yeah. Paul's watching it. Maybe that's more than Paul. So, okay, >> any of you get upset about that? >> So, so let's just, you know, end this by talking about next steps. So, again, as I said at the beginning, what I really would like is for this board, the boards, I should
210say, to take a straw poll as to whether or not you really want to look at at an override for FY27. And so, if you do, what we'll do is we'll come back in December and January and we'll bring to you various override options, what the amounts, what the structures look like. Remember, you can structure it a number of different ways. You can do a menu approach, you can do a lumped approach, you can do a tier. Um, I would anticipate, uh, you know, if everybody is satisfied, you know, the select board would have an opportunity to place uh, the article on the warrant and the ballot for March 26. And then on in May 26, we would have the respective town meeting and ballot votes. And if you decide not to move forward, um,
211we will continue to look at alternative measures, but they will include service cuts. They will include service cuts. >> So, I'm going to I'm going to jump in. First of all, thank you both to you and to Mr. Adams. I think this has been great information. Um, and I'm going to bring back something. You know, we had we had two meetings in the spring leading into the 2026 budget that were not public like this that I think we need to make sure that moving forward any discussion like this we have. again is done via Zoom so people can participate and watch and and I think that's important. Um I personally there there are 17 people in the room. Yes, we're all elected officials but 17 people of a community of 18,000 people. I don't know.
212I I'm not ready to take a straw vote tonight because for me, as I said when we were going into 2026, we need to reach out to the community. We need to find out what the community understands and what they think about this because yes, it's a lot of complicated information. And yes, we are all very much in tuned and aware of what's going on. But if we think this is something we need to do, we don't want to start it as an uphill battle with the community because they're going to say, well, you know, why can't you look at making reductions, right? Why can't you look at what you're doing at the library? And yes, all that we're doing at the library is great, but do we want to continue that? Let's look at
213what we're doing in for f, you know, for wonderful events in town. Do we want to continue doing all of those events? Is that something we support? You talked, Michael, about quality of life. I agree. Quality of life is very important. But I think the other thing we all have to think about is that what I consider important for quality of life and what I can do to support that quality of life might not be what the whole community can do. So for me, I I would like us to take a listening tour. Create some kind of listening tour. Go to different groups in the community. Go to the mom's groups, go to the PTO's, go to the whatever group we can think of and to the seniors, to the, you know, all you know,
214these different groups and do a listening tour and say this, you know, with with some of this data, this is good data to talk about what we're doing and what we want to do and to continue doing in our community. as we start thinking about this. >> So can I ask a question? So >> sure. >> So so what is it when would you make what would you need to know to make a decision? What would have to be what would you have to hear? >> I want to understand what in you know what is important enough to the community that we are doing as municipal staff and school staff that they are willing to support financially. Right. We we do all these great events. Beth and her team do you know Fall Fest was
215wonderful on Saturday, >> right? If Well, what if we didn't have that anymore, right? because that might be something they're right, you know, to to um to John's point, like we're having the conversation about what we're going to cut. And this is something I've said is if we do an override and it does not pass, we have to have we have to be ready to say, okay, override doesn't pass as of July 1st of 2026, this is what we're losing as a community. This is what is not going to happen in our community if the override doesn't pass. And again, I don't want to do it as a an emergency or oh, you know, you know, screaming and yelling, but we need to be very clear that maybe some of the events that we do
216at the corner spot wouldn't happen because there's staff that have to run that. Maybe some of the great programs at the library wouldn't be able to happen anymore because we don't have the staff to do those programs and to be in the building as much as they are now. Maybe there's something that has to happen at the schools that if we don't do an override, we have to be clear as to what we may not want to do. So, I just want to have a con. I want the community to be giving their input to us about what they support, what they think is important enough to to support an override. >> Isn't that >> I just wanted to can I I want to ask about that because obviously we're just representatives and I'm not
217elected so I'm just a volunteer. We're just representatives of the community so of course that matters. I'm confused what that would do to our timeline given how imminent this is. And I think we're saying we recommend we we don't put forth the override. We recommend that a override is needed and then we take that time to talk through all of that with the town and the town gets to vote or not vote for it. I think that makes sense. But I feel like one thing we learned is the last time it was a really long process if I'm right. >> Felt it felt felt pretty long. I >> it was not that long. >> It seems long, but it was not that long. >> But I think some of the things we maybe learned or
218you got the sense that maybe there was so much time that it got confusing and not that we want to rush the process, but >> how it was presented last time was >> Oh my gosh, it was very complicated. Just the fact that you guys are talking about we didn't make cuts but when it didn't pass folks it was ne that was never the plan. Remember the plan we didn't have a deficit the first year. The plan was to go ahead and pay it was a five-year plan passed an override and then you would bank the additional money and use it throughout the four-year period. >> So I'll say >> try explaining that one. >> Yeah. I'll say that someone who is a voter and was not elected at that point, I did find it
219kind of confusing to make a decision, but I do want to echo Yolanda's sentiment. The last time that we got together when we met, I think in the spring and we talked about this, um, we made it very clear, I think we all made it very clear that we needed to make sure that we had some kind of community input >> um, on this cycle. And that's why we're we're we're talking now, right? Um, you know, I'm looking at the next steps. It's it's important. I think it's important for us to inject some element of community feedback before we make any final decisions on what if if an override happens and what that looks like. So, I think that um you know, I understand the time crunch. I understand that we're running a little late
220on what we need to do, but I think if we skip that and we need to identify the best way to do this within the time we have, but we need to include that community listening piece, an education piece to determine what our next steps are because we did say that we were going to do that last time and I think we do need to fulfill that that promise. >> I guess I'm wondering why can't they happen in tandem? logistically can't happen at the same time. >> Like I said, I I think we sure, but I'm just saying that like we just have to include that. We can figure out what >> we started right now and then at the end of the year we come back together then we're starting again. you could do
221at the same time. >> Why? Well, or I mean, you know, again, I'm only one person. There's a lot of us sitting at this table because my fear is that if we here go, you know what, we think an override is what is needed based on what we've heard from Michael and Jim. >> Yeah. >> We're going to start going to the community and they're going to go, >> you guys have already decided. You guys have already determined. >> Well, it doesn't have to be presented that way. That's part of the messaging and that's part of >> that's not the sentiment at all. And I think I just want to I I think the clarifying part here is tonight whatever we decide to do. You know, it says here that we're looking at override options.
222If we if we do a straw poll tonight and say we're looking at options and one of those options is not to have an override, I'm comfortable with that. To say that we're proceeding, we're going to proceed and look at these options, include community input and such, that's fine. But to say tonight that like, yep, we're definitely going to need an override and, you know, we got to figure out how we're going to structure it. I don't think I'd feel comfortable taking a straw poll on that tonight. Just for clarification. And I think that's maybe that's the differentiation here that we need to to to from a communication standpoint and from a procedural standpoint that we need to make >> um and and and maybe go forward like that. >> My understanding was that we
223were going to take a vote on exploring options. >> Yeah. not not saying to the community that we have to do this. >> So I think that we're kind of on the same page with regard to that because I think part of our fiduciary responsibility >> forward with exploring an override for 2027, >> right? And exploring could agenda don't do it. Yeah. I >> we just need to be clear about >> for sure. Clarity and transparency is key here. >> Yeah. And I think we need to commit to that community involvement. >> 100% agree. I communicate that. >> Yeah. If I could just and just to clarify maybe so ultimately a decision is not made to put it on the ballot until the select board make that decision. >> Um and I want to clarify
224there's two bites at the apple here essentially. You know you got a town meeting vote and you have to have a ballot vote as well. As noble as Yolanda you Makita you know your intentions are I've never known that to happen in any other community. In most other communities, the the leadership decides based on the information they have, okay, we know it's it it is going to be a community discussion. The leadership decides, okay, we need to look at making this decision. Okay, we're going going ahead and making a decision to put it before the voters to have that conversation. What you're talking about, I don't think there's necessarily the time to do anything anything well in that structure. And also, you know, I I don't I like I said, I think it's it's very
225noble and admirable. Um, but I I don't I guess I don't really see much of a difference. I guess I'm kind of thinking like the way Shantel does. I mean, that's the conversation. This is what we're putting forward. This is what and I think we've heard continually about what's important to this community. I'm seeing a lot of headshake, nod. I think some of it's semantics which is really important versus we're saying we need an override versus we're saying we think we need to talk as community about our options >> several of which are types of overrides and one of their options is not to vote for an override. So part of it is messaging and semantics but I think to miss the opportunity to start now would be a big mistake. >> And I I
226agree. I think like we should if we decide that we're gonna kind of explore these options that all of us here, not Michael but all of us here are tasked with the community engagement over the next two months so that when when we do have options in front of us, we have some >> so they're informing the next steps very much informing >> and I would say that that's all incumbent on us to have these conversations and maybe >> as different boards, we figure out the ways best to do that. >> I I think that's fair and I don't want I think when we we say semantics sometimes people think that's dismissive. That's not. I want to make sure. I know that's not what you meant. I wanted to clarify that as well, but because
227again, you know, I think we have to be very specific and intentional with our communication even during our discussion this evening. I think clarifying the point tonight about our path forward was a worthy discussion to make sure that we understood that we are going to go forward and we're going to explore options. One of which might be not pursuing an overlight override, but we're exploring options at this point. And if that's what we're doing tonight and we're saying that we're going to commit to doing that, I don't have any any problems with that. But I just wanted to make sure that if that's what we're doing, we're communicating that clearly. >> Yeah. And the other the other component is I don't think it's binary. I don't think you can have the discussion with the community
228without doing the work because >> it's going to be a not it's not be a very productive conversation if you don't come with any answers to the obvious questions and and those things. So, >> uh and quite frankly, we we can't do anything binding because our agenda just says discuss budget. So we can't take a vote of any substance even if we wanted to. Uh so just be clear on on on that. >> Uh but but I think >> it's committing to the work and I I agree with you. I think we talked a lot about the committing to doing the work before and I think some work has been done but that's going to be key because you can't have the conversations without it's the it's the catch 22 and you got to find
229that right balance of when are you ready to go have that conversation and you're always going to have people saying you've already decided because you've done all this work but we have to do the work >> understand >> to have a good conversation because you can't just say hey what do you value okay thank you I'll come back and get it's you're not going to get that many iterative conversations, right? So, so you got to strike that right balance of when you engage during a process of discovery, right? You need you need the information to have a productive conversation. >> I I don't disagree with you, Paul. I think that the information needs to come first. I think one of the ways of discussing this with everybody in and around town, giving everybody the opportunity.
230Uh we've had public forums for a lot of different things and I think this is really important. It's important for every resident in town. So why not have a public forum on this topic have all the question have all the answers to the questions we know are going to be asked like like you've already mentioned and then you're not missing people. You're giving them an opportunity to come to a public forum. Whether they come or not, that's up to them. I mean you can lead a host to water, but that's as far as it goes. So you bring people in, you provide them a location community center maybe here. We have other you know options, Zoom and WACA has all these different uh technical advances that we could utilize to reach as many people as
231possible to sit and go talk to people individually. That's a great idea, but at the same token, you're putting a lot of energy out there and you may not be reaching the people that we need to reach. So my suggestion would be to set up a public forum, get the answers to the questions that we know are going to be asked, and then if the people decide to come, they come. If they don't, well, shame on them because it's their future. >> It's their tax dollars that that we're working. >> I think, you know, and another I I think a question I would love to know from the community is what kind of information do they need, >> right? >> Like what kind of what kind of questions do they have? What do what do
232they want to know? you know, um >> I think one thing I'll mention along those lines is um speaking on behalf of the finance committee, we're anxious to have public engagement because we feel that there is a mirror that needs to be held up to this community and there's nothing emotional in that statement. It's this just that this math eventually if something is not done there is going to be a fiscal reckoning of some kind. That's just a plain that's it. Full stop. I mean, and so, um, I'm not trying to frighten anybody, but a a protracted economic downturn with unemployment and declining home prices and rising interest rates and rising inflation will devastate us. And we're not concerned, finance committee, again speaking on behalf of the committee, we're not concerned about a 2% deficit
233because we know these guys can sharpen their pencils and they might have to lay a few people off and that would not be great. But we're not worried about that because we know that that can be absorbed more or less and we could probably get by with minor disruption. A systemic disruption though 10%. We're not ready for that. And it's we're not doing this more or less for the residents that are even living here today. We're looking at doing this for the people who are going to be here 10 years from now. That might not be you. It might not be me, but that's the fiduciary responsibility we have to the town. So, I I hear and respect everything everybody's saying, but to a certain degree, I and I want community involvement, but there needs
234to be a unified leadership here because if we go into this divided or people are wishy-washy or and you're entitled to your opinions, I don't mean that in a bad way, but if we're not approaching this in a way that uh is backed by the data, the reality, and holds that mirror up, it will not work. >> And uh I I I'm nervous about what that means for our future. Yeah, I think it's Oh, I'm sorry. >> Please. No, >> I was just going to say I think for the purposes of how do we move forward from tonight? Um I personally would like to see us commit to a meeting in December where we talk about um here's the different options if we choose to move forward with an override. Of course, with the option
235of not moving forward with an override also on the table. What does it look like with that $1 million figure that you said? What does it look like with the $3 million figure that you said in terms of how would that impact the school's budget? how would it impact the town budget? Um, and if we don't do it, what exactly does it mean? And so by and and I would like to see us commit to a meeting in December because it took us three months to put this on the calendar and we can't do that again. We and we we have to be mindful of we have to we have to commit to that. And I think we need to at least figure out the next steps of how do we move this conversation forward?
236And I think that's the next piece in terms of that very specific data. What would those different options look like? How would they impact the town? And if if the decision is no, what does that look like? >> To that to that point, I my recommendation is everyone pulls out their calendar because I mentioned this to Michael. I said, can we put on the agenda that we put a date for our next meeting because to your point, it took us three months to get this one. And this is important. I mean, if we all think this is important enough, we think this is important enough to meet together. you know, um I was talking to someone from another community. Their tribe board meets on a quarterly basis. Every three months, their three boards sit together.
237And I think it's something that I think it would be positive for us, especially with these things that we're looking at to do that. So, one, I would, you know, recommend let's pull out our calendars and try to find a date in December because if we try to do a doodle poll, that could take weeks. >> It's great. Sorry, just just before I forget about it, one of I think the variables that I think needs to be on the table is just a timeline. That's what made me nervous about what what's shown up there is like, hey, we're going to do this at this time. Let's commit to the work and then if the work says, hey, we're not quite ready, but we will be, we'll be able to bridge to the next one, right?
238So, let's scrap. We need to have some idea of a timeline to to work towards. Sure. But let's make sure our messaging isn't like, hey, we're racing towards that data because that doesn't give us a lot of time to do the work and do some good, you know, if we had a few more months, it might feel a little better, but I just think that needs to be one of the variables that we're we're exploring. The only the only thing I would say to that, Paul, is you know, yeah, you don't want to say we're racing through this, but we we know we have guidelines based on our charter and I bylaws of when things have to happen, right? When we have to vote things whether when things have that fiscal year or the next
239fiscal year, something that says, hey, we know working back from those dates, if we want it at this time, we need to do it then. But I'm saying >> um >> we should have started having this discussion after our budget in the spring, right? when we used $2 million in surplus funds to cut close our budget bud budget gap, right? And we knew that when we had our tri board meeting, we were talking about how we need to start the discussion sooner rather than later and because of different things. We didn't we waited until, you know, October 21st to start this discussion. >> Mike, just this all this talk about time frame and stuff, right? I mean you you guys are the ones who ultimately have to put forth the effort to build out the
240plan and tell us what you think, right? I mean from a time frame perspective based on everything that would be involved to taking it up to a vote. Can you just get get a thought on like what we need to have done by when? I mean if Yolanda's point come back in three months you said I mean and look at a plan. Is it going to be two months? Sorry. And I mean how much longer how much time do we have even after that to potentially delay >> March? >> Yeah. I mean the the board would need to take a vote by March. Just you know Yolanda pointed out you know according to our charter and according to our bylaws. >> Um >> okay. >> When Cindy when are the department head budgets due? >>
241November 20th. >> Yeah. I mean this is this is pretty accurate. Um, I mean, in terms of of of what we need, so you know, we we could look at late I think we'll need till late December to kind of come up with some thoughtful and varied options and strategies. Um, you know, we can present that to you. Uh, you can give us feedback on that. If something looks good or attractive to you at that point in time, we can go ahead and move forward and start really kind of ramping up and start, you know, collecting a lot of data as to what that looks like. And then you know if if it is to move forward with an override vote you know there's I think some things that have to happen you know politically
242um you know that is going to you know require some organizing and I can't necessarily do that Jim and I can't we can advocate but we can't necessarily be a part of of doing that. So yeah I think John this is this is a pretty >> I can't even All you can do is give information. No, we can advocate. >> We can advocate. >> The superintendent and and the town manager can. >> Now, I just want to put out my concern about going out for forums, you know, without having a solid recommendation from this group. I feel like we're elected to look at all this information and come to some kind of conclusion and make recommendations. And of course, as any of us who have been through the previous overrides, getting input is part of
243the whole thing. That's all we did the entire time once we decided to do the override. We were in people's homes. We were doing everything we could to educate, answer questions, and so forth. But I feel that what we're here to do is what we just did is get all the information. We've heard that in a short period of time we are not going to be able either on the school side or the town side to maintain a level service which is very concerning and should be to everybody and going out to see if people like Yolanda you mentioned it being an uphill battle like of course it's going to be an uphill battle like that's a given right no who I I'm retired I don't want to pay for an override you know but
244I I will because this these kinds of things are important to Um, so are we asking people if they like >> I just want to do a check-in with the community >> to make sure that the values that we all think are important to the community are actually important to the community. That's all. And you know, if people want to wait, we can wait until we have more information and and you know, then go out and ask the question as we have these override opportunities. But my other concern about that, Yolanda, can I just I just want to finish my thought just because I'm to the age where I'm going to forget what I want to say >> by time it circles back around to me. Yeah, trust me. Um my my other thought is
245though like without like a recommendation who's coming to these forums like the people that come out are going to be like the same small group of people that that come. Um it's not the community. It's just, you know, a few people, they're going to offer input and then what are we going to do if 10 people say they don't want an override? Is it off the table? If a hundred people, if a thousand people, like, it just feels very wishy-washy to me when we have a real problem and people have put us in the position of coming forward with potential solutions. Now, they might not like the solutions that we're suggesting, and we'll find that out along the way. We might have to tweak our plan. We might even have to abandon the plan. But
246I think I I'm just against going out there saying, you know, to the 10 people that are going to show up. What do you guys think? >> So, can I I want to can I jump in? I've been trying to listen as much as I can tonight, but I >> I think having been one of the people was on the override committee last time, which seems like like somewhere between five months ago and 20 years ago. I think there are a lot of things that people put on the table tonight that are really important and and I still struggle, Joe, with something you said earlier about people have long memories. I have a long memory, right? I felt like we were going through that process in a certain way and it turned out not to
247be necessary. And so if I'm scarred at that and I'm on this committee and I'm going to support an override at some point in time if there's one put to the community, I'm mindful of that. I think the community input is critical, but I also think that's what the vote is, right? We're all elected to kind of look at the information to Lor's point and say we see a problem here, right? There are a lot of solutions to those problems. Some of those problems might be override. Some of those might be we've learned the community's like it's not that much of a problem for them. Cut it right and that that's all they want. But I do think as people who are elected this side and appointed this side, but all the people who are
248committed to the community, we have to take that responsibility and the roles that we're in and look at the the figures and say we see a problem here, right? And I'm okay sort of making a little bit of an assumption for myself that is people like what they have here, right? We can't continue to do that if we don't solve our financial problem. That's my takeaway from from this discussion. And so it's not just a matter of like it not going backwards. It's if we just want to stay where we are, we have a financial problem. I think where that leaves me is certainly saying look I think it's something that has to be on the table for discussion. I think it's also critically important and we spent how many how many times did you
249come to my house Michael Jim you too when we did these forums trying to get 10 people more you and I talked about it Brandy right coming in and trying to get to groups as big as we could and what we end up hitting was the same 20 people over and over and over again and so while I think it's absolutely important that we reach out to the community we have to start from somewhere and the way I see it the place we're starting at is recognizing that there is an issue and communicating that out with something that says this might be a direction we're going in. It's not a commitment. You know, to your point, Mikita, it's not a commitment to do anything. I also don't think there's a way that we come out
250of whatever those feedback sessions is with anything that really represents what a vote will, right? We're going to hear from a certain number of people that have strong opinions on one side or the other or both. Um, and we're going to sit there sort of still struggling with the same problem. I think we just have to be honest about that. So, my opinion is like I'm not committing to anything, but I think we need to move forward with the idea of exploring this. I think we also need to be doing the outreach, whether that's a a town forum kind of thing, Joe, and I agree with you, but I also want to be cognizant of what we're likely to get out of that, which is there are certain number of people that are going to
251be active that have different opinions. And I'm not saying it's all going to be one side or the other, but we have to be mindful of what what are we really going to get out of that that's going to say, "Oh, there's no way that that's going to happen or it absolutely is." And I think we have to take our role as leaders seriously and be prepared to say, "Look, folks, you elected us to to try to push in a certain direction." And you guys get the final decision because it's your community, right? It's every it's everybody in this room's community. It's everybody outside this room's community within the town. They get to decide what we're going to do. And one of the ways we find out what they want is putting a vote to
252them. When do you see us having more this morning? When do you see uh an opportunity to have more solid figures? And I I know I wish I could pull a rabbit out of my hat, but that's not going to happen either. >> I would think we have some understanding of I mean, if we're showing a potential million dollar, you know, that we need either million dollar or $3 million. We've seen from the school department what their potential deficit is. We've seen it from the from the general government side what our potential def deficit is right so to me for me the thing that I think is important is okay if we need to cut x million you know x amount of money what would that look like what are some things that what are
253the options of possible things that we may lose as a community I think that's >> I think from the school side Yolanda I can only speak to the school side but that gets kind of dangerous to start doing that before we actually have to do it because things change so quickly like the enrollment might change. So we might not need 10 kindergarten teachers, we might need eight, you know, and so that we're going to look at it a whole different way on that budget season and then it affects our credibility if we said we were going to lose this teacher, but then something changed within our system that we no longer have to lose that teacher. That doesn't mean we're going to pay have the pain somewhere else. >> Here's here's an example, right? Jim
254has mentioned that the athletic department has a $300 a $300,000 deficit every year, right? Yeah. Okay. Well, we either have to make up that deficit or do something to not have that deficit, right? There's a number of us around the table that are here in finance and if you have expenses more than your income, you need to have an idea of how you and and I understand it's tough with specifics, but then we can say from, you know, potentially we can say from a from a school side, we may need to if we can't meet the expected increase in costs, then we may need to decrease some of those costs. And it's hard because you don't want to have specific. >> It's hard to say exactly what. So, one of the reasons why athletics has
255kind of stayed the way that it is is because every single year we're forced with do we hire the special education teacher or do we put you know I've spent the time on the I understand >> right you've so you've been on the school but that's why it's hard to go out to the community though outside of >> so then maybe we don't need those specifics right people are saying well we need maybe it's not that specific that we need right maybe the understanding is we see this budget gap between revenue and expens expenses, we're expecting a higher potential budget gap based on federal income or state income and state aid. So if from that perspective, you know, we right if we're if we're looking at pure numbers, we we do need a budget. We
256do need an override, right? If we're looking at pure numbers based on what we heard tonight, heck, we need an override. My my thing is that I want the community to I want to know what their specific values are, right? You know, you there's a lot of talk about sports. My kids didn't do sports. Does that mean it's not important? No. But it's something we have to think about, right? We do a lot of community events here in town that are all great events. Are they important enough to our community to support that? right of the stuff the great stuff that's happening in our library the the the people we've added in different departments all the great stuff we're doing in our community center and at our senior center if people value that then I
257would feel more comfortable saying okay enough people that I've spoke and I'll go out and do some of this on my own I have no problem doing that if I hear enough people say I value the things that I'm seeing Ashlin doing and I can get behind this then I think we should move forward Yolanda, we just did that. We spent the last two years going through a comprehensive plan. We have a final document that's very very um ambitious >> and I I'm proud of the work that we all did that had so much community input >> and very clearly stated what the community wants. And based on all of that, I'm comfortable saying the community wants the quality of life, wants us to not cut services. Um, and so I I I I feel
258pretty okay about making that assumption. Um, you know, I I think that the community needs to to react to this specific stuff. I think that that's part of part of the work that we need to do. But as far as like what the community values, we've we've we've heard that from the last two years. So I think >> we never we never put a dollar value on it though, right? >> Well, that's true. But that's what the vote is because I was thinking the exact same thing is we know what the community values and we know what the community wants. The question is can the community can the people afford it? That's the decision that goes to the community. But I think we do have a great understanding of what this community values and and
259then but then it's >> I mean you spent a long time trying to >> flush that out right >> over two years. So, um, I don't disagree with what you're saying. I The information has to get out there and I don't I don't disagree, Mark. I agree with you 100%. Lori, I agree with you. I just There's a question >> and that's again, Chicken Little, you know, I I'll throw out the libraries. That didn't pass because everybody was, you know, we're going to lose the library. We're going to lose the library. What happened? You didn't lose the library at the end. We lost the library. >> I just I just want to say something >> in school. You're talking about >> But it sounds like I mean it sounds like there there is agreement here
260that you know the path forward involves a very strong and clear and intentional communications effort from this group to to the community. and we need to listen to find out, you know, you know, we can lay out the options. We can say what we recommend. We can listen as we're gathering this feedback. And to your point if there's adjustments that need to be if there are adjustments that we feel that need to be made before the final proposal goes in, I feel like we're all sort of we're we're we're kind of describing the same thing in different ways a little bit. And so we might be missing each other, but I think we all do agree that, you know, we're not making a definitive defi decision on what this looks like after this meeting. I
261mean, it's non-binding. So that's not going to happen tonight, but uh we do agree that, you know, we need to get more specific information. We do need to make a communications effort with the community and do some listening and then finally we'll all end up voting on it. that communic that community outreach and participation between now and the vote is critical and that's what I'm hearing from this group tonight. >> Yeah. >> Am I wrong? >> Back to scheduling the meeting in December. >> Yeah. I just have a question just partially a statement and a question, right? So make no mistake just from finance committee again. Disclaimer disclaimer. We need to do something. Okay. Full stop. All right. The math is the math. Um, I think that what we need to do is as and
262less us, more you. You guys are the elected ones. Okay. We're appointed. >> All right. Yeah, you're >> Yeah. I want no part of that. >> But we're consulting, >> but uh Okay, now we're a team. All right. I'm just kidding. But uh in all seriousness, >> in all in all seriousness, I like to joke around. I'm kidding. Of course. You know, I I think when it comes to what what what being a leader means to me and I I just put it in simple terms when, you know, when I'm when I'm parenting, I say to my kids, you need to do this and then I say, what are your thoughts on that, right? Like I'm the parent. I'm the leader. I I've made this decision, but I want your input because maybe something that
263I've just said to you, you see it a little differently and maybe what I'm saying is not fully the way that I'm thinking that it's going to work out in your favor. So I think we we need to leave this meeting is committing, this is my opinion on behalf of the finance committee, committing to doing this thing and then going to the community and say we've decided we need to do this thing. Here's the mirror. Here's your community and all your values and all the math. Look at it. Tell us what you think. Maybe we missed something. And then we have a vote. My question for you guys is the time frame is ridiculously short. Um, I know you can vote on it in March if you decided to do so. Can you vote on
264it earlier than that? >> Yes. >> Okay. >> Yeah, we could. >> Sorry. >> No problem. >> You know, the process is if if we decide to move forward. The latest is March. >> The latest >> plus we have to look at when it because we have to put it get it on the ballot as well as put it on a warrant for town meeting. >> Okay, cool. I just wasn't sure if March was like a fixed thing. That's all. Okay. Thank you. That's very >> drop dead thing. Got it. Okay. All right. So, um, if we do this next meeting, how I mean, I'll get together next month if if if we can. I mean, it doesn't need to be two months. However long these guys need to put together a plan, the sooner
265the better because then we can make the commitment and then we can start having these community discussions which I I agree are very important. And just as piggyback, one of the things I was going to mention is as you two are the leaders of kind of putting this together and doing perhaps if you feel the need to have a workshop at some point that you extend to the to the group here and we can post and whether people show up or not that's fine and it doesn't have to be this big formal thing. But the challenge with being public bodies is that iterative conversation and collaboration is is cumbersome as we've you know learned trying to even schedule this. So just to throw that out there as a potential tool that as you collect these
266things if you want feedback from the group we don't necessarily need to say hey we're you two are say hey I'm going to you know I want to see if I can get people's feedback on Saturday from 9 to 11 and we'll po we'll all post and if we can show up we'll show up and we'll have a collaborative thing. So because if we wait till my concern is you're you're two people and your staff and you're going to be collecting data but there's all these people that are like hey what about this? We have lots of different people looking coming at it from different angles. We need to be able to iterate faster than talking now and talking in December, right? and and so uh my my just throwing it out there if you
267have the ability to whether it's on a Saturday what whatever time it is but if you all want input during there to get so you're not just coming because what I don't want to have happen is you spend two months doing all this great work and then you come here and we're all like what about this what about this and now you have to you know when we couldn't be potentially giving you iterative feedback along the way mindful of how we need to do that as as public bodies >> but we could do iterative Right? It could come out to each it come out come out to each board >> and we just respond back to the town manager. Right? You don't discuss it with your fellow board members and you send it back to
268your you know you guys can communicate with the superintendent. We can >> but the iteration does happen that can go one direction one time but then the iteration by definition is now the >> we also all have meetings between now and when we meet in December. So it could be part of you know it could be put on a select board agenda. There's all kinds of options. if they want to do it. I'm not saying that that we have to do anything, but I'm just concerned. >> Yeah, I'm I'm I'm more concerned of just saying, "Hey, we're going to next talk about this as a group and you all have and you can't work with us except for in public meetings." I >> I think that's a good point. >> You know, so yeah, >>
269if you I'm just throwing out there as a possibility of you do that, we post so we can be there and you know, if we don't have a quorum for school committee, hey, meeting didn't happen, great. uh if it does we have take minutes and do all those things but we can have a more productive conversation at that larger meeting. >> Okay. Thank you uh everyone. You know great dialogue. and I appreciate it and I think as we get our marching orders, if you will, um I the one thing I want to be cautionary of to all of you and to our community and some would argue that I I've been a a leader and a superintendent who has a soft spot for my faculty and staff because I do and because I think about
270the morale of my staff on a regular daily basis and I work hard to develop a an organization and a community of of learners within my building that is respectful and appreciative and thoughtful of one another when we start having these conversations and you start saying, "Hey, Jim, we want you to pull together that 10% cut and and be ready for that conversation." I just want to warn everyone here. Uh it may not hit your desk. It will certainly hit mine and it hit Michael's that that there's a morale piece that will impact and infect our school system. >> Yeah, >> it will happen >> and it that's okay. It's it's why you pay me. I can deal with it. But the greater point is as we start having dialogue in terms of options, I
271want to be able to be clear and transparent with my folks. They're like, "What 25 people are you cutting, Jim? What does that look like?" I don't know. I can't tell you that. As hard as I've worked in the 16 years here developing building relationships with my faculty and staff, I can't tell you that it's so it then becomes an issue within our community too, right? because a lot of our faculty and staff live within this community and we certainly know where our educators are going to stand in terms of their desires within um the budget cycle in terms of an override or not an override and and cutting this or cutting that. Um they certainly will be protecting of of of their roles as they should be. I have no issues with that. But
272I just it's just cautionary. I think we're having great conversation, but I don't think that has even come to anyone's tongue tonight saying we've got to be thoughtful. Yes, we may have to go down and have an option that says we have to cut X percentage, but if I went back to my admin team right now, and I know we have some faculty watching this because I've had a couple texts, and and if they're saying, "Hey, Jim, you've got to walk away now and think about cutting You know, >> you already have a directive cut 5%, right? >> No, that's not my directive. I mean, Michael's conversation with his staff. >> It's not it's not my conversation. >> I I don't have that directive and and I think I'm working on my budget. I'm trying
273to figure out what my budget looks like. >> So, right now, you're not looking at any budget for 2027 that includes cuts. >> I am not. No. 3.75 >> I'm working on it at 3.75% increase right now which would absolutely lead to potential cuts. >> Okay. Okay. So you're so you're okay because I >> but I'm not I'm not working under the the presumption that I have to start with a 5% cut reduction. >> And my my specific instructions to my team were you're going to do two budgets. So, one is a level funded budget, not a level services, but you keep the same funding as FY26. And then you also do one with >> Yeah, sorry. >> Sorry. Just uh >> level service. >> Yeah, I've got uh a couple So, our departments are
274doing um a couple of different budgets. One is a level funded one. So, the same funds as as FY26, and there will be reductions there. Um there will have to be some kind of reductions in services there. Um but then also a 5% reduction as well. And I and I can I can support 110% what Jim said. Um just asking my department heads to do that has created a level of discomfort. And you know even when I've told him like if you need to cut salaries don't cut individual positions. Just cut it off the off the salary line and we'll figure it out. And it doesn't mean that you're going to get a 5% reduction if we do. But, you know, on one hand I'm saying make a 5% reduction. On the other hand, I'm
275saying, "Hey, don't worry about it yet." Um, but one thing I was very clear about is I don't have all the to my staff is I I don't have all the answers right now, but I will be 100% transparent with you um in terms of the direction that we get and the direction in which we're heading. And the other thing I want to point out is there is a time issue here because this is what we're talking about tonight, but Jim and I have to walk and chew gum at the same time. There's a plenty of other this is not the only thing on our plate. You know, we have a lot of other things that we have to do. And so this timeline is put together in a way that gives us I think
276with the time we have probably the best possible chance to give you the best possible options. >> Yeah. I just wanted to echo a little bit about what Jim said because I I have a long memory in this town and and uh you know I was here when we had an operation override that failed and that ultimately we did lay off many people and many teachers and it was devastating to this community and I would suggest to you that even today >> 22 23 years later um that there are still positions that we never got back >> that we have many fewer at the high school many fewer um uh think of it but positions we have fewer languages that we teach. We have we never recovered from it. So um but in terms of
277the morale it's absolutely palatable. So I just want to uh and I was sitting here thinking about that Jim so I had put words to it but it's true. If you think December is fine, I mean, that's fine. But I think if there is this motivation to do this sooner, I'm first and foremost happy to get back together sooner if that would afford you guys more time. But I realize that we all have different schedules. What do you think? Is December okay? >> This December is okay. That does not preclude us from having any dialogue ahead of time. And you know, there's one thing I would ask you to start doing homework on. And if you can't, and it's easy to find these resources on the Massachusetts Department of Revenue website or division of local
278services, however you want to talk about it, is um the structure. So there's a number of different ways you can structure an override. You can structure it as a menu approach where there's an individual question for different departments. You can structure it as a lump sum, you know, just one big number that encompasses everything that we want to encompass as as a community. And then there's also a tiered structure which I believe is what we tried to do at the last one where you have like one kind of base number and then enhancements in another number. Um you know both to to get the higher number both would need to be voted on. So I would encourage you to take a look at that kind of do some research on that. Look at what other
279communities have done. Um because I would appreciate your thoughts on that because that that's going to be a big decision. Big part of the decision I should say. for Hollist. It was just for their school. When Jim mentioned it, I texted a friend of mine who's on their select board. And >> what was the amount, Yolanda? Do you know >> that? I don't know. But it was just Yeah, 750. >> Small. >> Yeah, but it was it would Well, >> I think for their school department 750 right now. >> Did they have menu items or was it just a >> I can I'll find that out and I'm sure it's just curious. >> Easily find. So, do we want to look at a date in December? Can can I ask one question before you get
280to the date and and try not to add that another topic to this, but I feel like the conversation is leading to work for for Mike and Jim. Um, and I'm wondering whether or not there's wisdom in having some sort of committee like we did last time, which was a couple people from each of these committees, Jim and Mike and and the mayors. Um, I I I don't know that people whether people feel the need for that. and and the charge of that committee was looking at the different options like Michael was just outlining, but some of that was also thinking about the strategy of how to support the effort at that point. Um outreach we've talked about I'm not volunteering. I I did mine did it once. >> I was just in a meeting
281today, Mark, and the and the comment was whoever comes up with the idea has to do it. [Laughter] No, but but I'm just quite frankly in fairness to both of them like their staff. They work for all of us. We're the elected and appointed officials that um kind of are more directly accountable to the community and and um I think part of our jobs collectively is to support both them and this work too. So um I I want to put on the table maybe it's not something that has to be resolved tonight. Maybe it's something that we talk about at individual meetings and can be taken up once kind of see what we're even talking about. I don't know. But it just um doesn't necessarily feel exactly right to me to sort of say, "Hey,
282you guys sorted out." >> Yeah, I would support that because I think part of what happened is we had all these discussions. I I think you and I spoke a little bit in um when we all met as the tri board. We talked about all these things we should do because no one's nominated nominated or tasked with it. It doesn't happen. we come back six months later, nothing's happened. That's just human nature. So I think if you do have a committee and people who are committing to working on it, I think that >> well I mean so perhaps >> if that's wanted, >> how best to support you in this effort, right? We've thrown up ideas, but I think at the end of the day, um you're hearing we want to support you. I'm concerned
283just about, you know, two months of non-communication. I know we'll have meetings and stuff like that and then >> we we meet and we want more. We want something different, but you didn't hear about it till two months from now, right? So, >> I would I would just throw out you two talk. Figure out >> about what I think they told us. >> Okay. So, I'm gonna >> finish this sentence, but you guys talk. figure out how best we can support you and let us know whether that is a subcommittee uh whether that's your working group what how how can we support you to make sure that we meet the deadlines and have productive conversations. Okay, we can do that and maybe the best thing to do is check in our at our individual meetings,
284you know, from now and then and you know, after we have those conversations, but um I would I would say just to give us, you know, adequate time to again put together uh some good options for you, I would say, and I know it's bumping up into the holidays. Um, and I'm not I'm not totally familiar with the with the um religious calendars, but would at some point the week of the 15th be okay for people? >> Hanukkah begins December 14th. >> Okay. >> What Joe is mentioning? December 10th. >> December 10th >> after the school committee meeting. Again, >> what we have tonight, >> Wednesday, December 10th. >> It's one last week. Is that going to be all right for you guys? >> We can make We'll make it work. >> All right. We'll
285make it work. Does >> that work for all the whole select? >> We'll already be here, right? >> We have to move our meeting earlier like we did this time. Would that you'd want to start at six? >> So, or I mean I mean it's not so if if it's going to be I mean hopefully maybe it's not as long as we we had to go through a lot more uh this time. But >> not a problem for me. >> Start starting it later I think is going to be >> you know >> I mean I mean if you want to push to 6:30 I don't I don't need to. What about Good for everybody. Our meeting was more starting our meeting. >> Marcy, does that work for you to be here by >> 5
286p.m.? >> Yeah. So, we'll we'll move our meeting, Jim. >> On the 10th, >> 5:00 >> and then whoever can appear at 6. >> Okay. >> Thank you both for everything that you put together. Thank you. >> Again, you know, I know Jim and I and I know the staff feel this way too is um >> like we know like >> it's tough >> this is tough but with the team that we have we'll figure out a solution whatever that is. I do feel confident about that. I mean we we are we do a lot with a little already but this has been an excellent discussion. I I feel I feel good about the dialogue and um it's it it teamwork. It's going to take teamwork to solve this problem whatever way we choose, right?
287Whatever direction we go in and I think this was a good good exhibition of what that teamwork looks like. So >> yeah, and and I just want to I probably say this each time we meet, but >> this is unique in the Totally. There's you can count on one hand and you you'd still be able to ball your fist on how many other communities can have these three groups sit here have a good conversation that doesn't involve you know some some choice words have two leaders uh that work so well together. So and and I think it's a lot of it is the work that you both do. So uh kudos to you on that. >> Yeah. >> You're here. >> Yeah. >> Motion to motion to adjoin the select board. Thank you everybody. Thank
288you Wacka. Good night. >> So select is not done. >> We're not done. Select board if you could please stay. Yes, we have to stay. Oh, >> you have something else.