2005-01-20-AC-min - Laserfiche WebLink

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January 20, 2005 Minutes Town of Lexington Appropriation Committee January 20, 2005 Present: Members: Rod Cole, Deborah Brown, Paul Hamburger, Rick Eurich, Eric Michelson, John Bartenstein, David Kanter Nonmembers: Richard Pagett, Jane Pagett, Tom Griffiths At 7:35 DB called the meeting to order in the Reading Room, Cary Hall. PM th Minutes: The final edits for the minutes of Jan. 6 were not ready, and will be discussed at the next meeting. Moody’s: DB said thatCinder McNerney (Sr. VP, First Southwest Co.), the town bond advisor, called to report that the town retained both the Aaa rating and the negative outlook. The final word from Moody’s has not been received. Lexington still has the lowest reserves of all 13 towns with a Aaa rating, and below many towns with lower ratings. Much of the discussion revolved around the question of what is Moody’s most sensitive to, and how to structure the budget so it appears in the best light. For example, it might be better to be less conservative regarding revenue estimates and budget no free cash, rather than budget free cash and use conservative revenue estimates to build back free cash. Both approaches are equivalent, but appear different on a budget spreadsheet. Budget relief from Capital: There was a discussion of how Capital Expenditures might be able to free up $478K. There is $713K in that part of the budget that could theoretically be freed up by not taking on capital projects. One member of the CEC has suggested forgoing $478K. It is not known if the committee as a whole would support such a move. JB asked about the future possibility of grouping small projects that are normally funded out of the operating budget to get bundles large enough to put into debt exclusion overrides. There was a discussion of the trade-offs versus current practice, principally loss of flexibility. Action: Ask John Ryan about the feasibility of this idea. JB then raised the question of could capital be put off for a year to free up a large sum of money. Paul answered that most of the money in that item is committed and the total uncommitted amount was $713K. COLA issues: DK raised the issue of COLA amounts. RP stated we need a very low COLA amount. No COLA was paid this year. The current budget estimate uses a 2.5% COLA, but there is no way to do this. Lowering the COLA is really the town’s only opportunity to lower costs other than letting people go.