2007-01-11-AC-min - Laserfiche WebLink

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January 11, 2007 Minutes Town of Lexington Appropriation Committee January 11, 2007 Place and time: Legion Room, Cary Memorial Building, 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: Michael Young, Budget Officer; Gloria Bloom, TMMA Chair; George Burnell The meeting was called to order at 7:40 PM. FY08 Budget Status. 1. Michael Young distributed a current working draft of the Fiscal Year 2008 Manager’s Recommended Budget & Financing Plan (the “White Book”), dated January 8, 2007, together with a Powerpoint presentation on the FY08 budget that had been made to the Board of Selectmen at its most recent meeting on Monday, January 8. Michael and Rob Addelson then reviewed the highlights of the Town Manager’s working budget plan with the Committee. They emphasized that this version of the budget plan did not yet have the input of the School Department, but otherwise was reasonably complete. Michael explained that the School Superintendent would be presenting his operating budget to the School Committee on Tuesday, January 16. The school numbers would then be added to the municipal numbers to determine the complete combined projected operating budget and the projected budget gap. The third Summit meeting, scheduled for Thursday, January 18 would address the allocation of the FY07 to FY08 revenue increase between municipal and school expenses, and the Town Manager hoped to be able to present a final budget to the Board of Selectmen on Monday, January 22. Some of the key points made concerning the FY2008 projected budget were as follows: ?? State aid increased last year to an amount close to its historic high in dollar terms, and the level for FY2008 is not expected to go down, but state aid still is significantly below the level that would have been expected had historical amounts increased with inflation. ?? Recent changes in the composition of the Cherry Sheet require an accounting adjustment in order to make historical comparisons; in particular, since FY06, state payments for the METCO program have been made as a direct grant and are no longer on the Cherry Sheet; the numbers in the White Book for FY06 have been restated to account for this change. - 1 -