2007-09-20-AC-min - Laserfiche WebLink

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September 20, 2007 Minutes Town of Lexington Appropriation Committee September 20, 2007 Place and time: Town Hall, Room G-15, 7:30 p.m. Members present: Alan Levine (Chair), John Bartenstein (Secretary), Deborah Brown, Richard Eurich, Pam Hoffman, Susan McLeish, Eric Michelson, Rob Addelson (ex officio, non-voting) Also present: Carl Valente (Town Manager); Michael Young (Budget Officer) Discussion of Items on Town Warrant 1. . Michael Young explained that there are five articles on the Town Warrant: 1 - Reports of Boards and Committees, 2 - Proposed TIF for Shire, 3 – Operating Budget Adjustments for 2008, 4 – Enterprise Budget Adjustments for 2008 and 5 – A Citizen Article regarding Municipal Electric Utilities. He then went into the detail behind several of the Articles as follows: ?? Article 3– Operating Budget Adjustments for FY 2008 - the items represent housekeeping items – the first is an appropriation of $100,000 in overlay surplus which should have been presented at Town Meeting in the spring but was not due to an oversight. Additionally, the Town has been allocated additional state aid in the final state budget of $69,868. There will be two special elections necessary as a result of the retirement of Senator Havern and they would each cost $25,000.The remaining $19,868 of the state aid increment is proposed to be added to the Reserve Fund and the funds can be earmarked at a later date. Michael also discussed two line items relating to a transfer of settlement monies from the Municipal Salary Adjustment account as a result of the Coalition settlement. A discussion ensued and a question was raised whether these items should be disclosed but not presented for a Town Meeting vote, as they are items that the Board of Selectmen alone can approve. ?? Article 4 – Enterprise Fund Budget Adjustments for FY 2008 – Michael also explained Article 4 related to MWRA charges for water and sewer. The final assessments for water and wastewater are lower than budgeted (the final rates were established subsequent to the Town’s budget process) and there are small increases for additional interest and insurance costs for Water debt and Wastewater debt. Also in the Article is an item to approve the use of $362,570 of Water Enterprise retained earnings for support of operations. A question was raised regarding paying down debt to help keep future rate increases and Rob Addelson indicated that staff will be preparing a policy on reserves that will address this question. There was a short discussion about the movement of the reserve in the past few years and it has increased from $2 million last year to $2.5 million this year as a result of liening water and sewer bills. - 1 -