2007 AC Rpt4 - Laserfiche WebLink

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APPROPRIATION COMMITTEE 4" REPORT, April 28, 2007, TO 2007 ATM In addition, a $40,000 transfer is requested from the compensation line item to the expenses line item under 7300 Economic Development. This transfer will allow the Town to hire a consultant as recommended by the Lexington 2020 Economic Development Task Force to: (1) confirm the commercial development potential identified by the 2020 Task Force, (2) produce a cost/benefit analysis of such development, and (3) undertake the relevant market analysis. Funds are available for this request because the budgeted Economic Development Officer has not yet been hired; therefore, this, too, does not impact the FY2007 bottom line. Schools Requests At the April 12, 2007, Budget Collaboration Summit Meeting, the Schools described a net FY2007 budget deficit of $803,231, focusing in particular on overruns in energy and Special Education costs which were of such a magnitude that they could not be sufficiently offset by savings in other school expense accounts. The Superintendent intends to cover $201,693 of this deficit through savings anticipated from a freeze on supplies budgets imposed on February 13, 2007, which left a $601,538 deficit. Subsequently, it was found that the Schools hadn't funded their one -half of the cost of the High School Resource Officer —who is a Police Department employee within the Municipal budget —under an agreement between the Schools and Municipal Departments. This added $24,000 to the Schools deficit. However, the State Department of Education informed the Schools on April 24, 2007, that Lexington had qualified for $103,980 in Extraordinary Relief for Special Education —which has been applied toward the deficit. (That relief occurs when a specified range of current year's SPED costs are at least 25% greater than those same costs in the prior year.) The remaining $521,558 deficit makes up the Schools request under this article. The Town Manager has proposed funding this request from three sources: (1) Savings from other municipal and shared expense line item(s) totaling: $303,569, including $166,069 from 2130 Group Insurance and excess municipal salaries from hiring lags and vacancies in the following departments: 5100 Library, 7300 Economic Development, 7100 Community Development, 8210 -8220 Town Manager, and 8600 MIS. (If these surpluses had not been needed at this time to offset FY2007 deficits, the Town Manager would have recommended either increasing the FY2007 Reserve Fund by a like amount in order to make these funds available for any end -of -year budget deficits, or allowing the funds to revert to Free Cash.) (2) Reserve Fund: $8,520 (3) Free Cash: $209,469 See the discussion below under Shared Expenses regarding the impact of this proposed action on the Reserve Fund balance. Page 11 of 13