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November 27, 2006 Minutes Town of Lexington Appropriation Committee November 27, 2006 Place and time: Town Office Building, Room G-15, 7:30 p.m. Members present: Al Levine (Chair), Deborah Brown (Vice-Chair), John Bartenstein (Secretary), Rod Cole, Rick Eurich, Pam Hoffman, David Kanter, Mike Kennealy, Eric Michelson, Rob Addelson (ex officio, non-voting) Also present: Tom Diaz (School Committee Chair), Tom Griffiths (School Committee Member) The meeting was originally noticed for 7:30 p.m., but its commencement was delayed for about an hour to permit the Chair and several other committee members to attend an ad hoc meeting with the Board of Selectmen and others addressing the scope of the article to be presented at Special Town Meeting No. 2 for the DPW facility replacement project. The meeting was called to order at approximately 8:45 p.m. Unpaid School Bills for FY06. 1. Tom Diaz reported that the School Committee now has a handle on the issue of unpaid school bills for FY06. Bills totaling $42,864 were originally identified as unpaid. Of this amount, $5,815 has now been determined to have been misidentified or otherwise provided for, leaving a balance of $37,049 to be paid. Although there might be a way to appropriate funds to pay these bills at the upcoming special Town Meeting, the Moderator is uncomfortable doing so under the existing warrant articles, and therefore the plan is to seek such an appropriation at next spring’s annual town meeting. The vendor to whom the largest sum is owed, about $27,000, has indicated that it would be willing to forego payment until this time, and it is believed that deferral of the other payments will not pose a problem. David Kanter expressed the view that the School Committee should seek an appropriation for the unpaid school bills at the Special Town meeting, if possible, in fairness to all vendors owed payments. John Bartenstein suggested that one possible approach would be for the School Committee seek payment of the unpaid bills now from the finance committee reserve, and then request a supplemental appropriation to the FY07 budget (either at the Special Town Meeting or at next spring’s annual town meeting) in a like amount to bring the reserve back up to current levels. He was not sure, however, whether such an approach would be legally permissible. Committee Report for Special Town Meeting No. 1. 2. There was a discussion with Messrs. Diaz, Griffiths and Addelson of the Committee’s write-up of Article 2 in its draft report on Special Town Meeting No. 1, and the language of that section of the report was refined. The School Committee members then departed. - 1 -