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01/05/2023 AC Minutes 1 Minutes Town of Lexington Appropriation Committee (AC) January 5, 2023 Place and Time: Remote Participation: in accordance with “An Act Relative to Extending Certain State of Emergency Accommodations”, signed into law by Gov. Baker on July 16, 2022, communication took place via a Zoom teleconferencing session that was open to the public; 7:30 p.m. Members Present: Glenn Parker, Chair; Anil Ahuja; John Bartenstein; Alan Levine, Secretary; Eric Michelson; Lily Manhua Yan; Carolyn Kosnoff, Assistant Town Manager, Finance (non-voting, ex officio) Members Absent: Sanjay Padaki, Vice-Chair; Sean Osborne; Other Attendees: Bob Cunha, Retirement Board; David Kanter, Capital Expenditures Committee; At 7:32 p.m. Mr. Parker called the meeting to order and confirmed attendance by roll call. Mr. Levine was enlisted to take minutes and recorded the meeting for the purpose of creating minutes. Announcements and Liaison Reports Mr. Michelson announced that, in late 2022, the State released a supplement of twenty million dollars for the State trust fund for Community Preservation and that the funds were then distributed to communities. Lexington received about $495,000 of those funds. For FY2023, the State match for Lexington amounts to 39.96% of the revenue from the local tax surcharge, just over the 38% that was anticipated by the Town. Ms. Kosnoff announced that the preliminary budget in the form of the White Book will be released on January 6. The preliminary budget contains the amount from the revenue allocation process for the school budget even though the preliminary school budget that was recently released exceeds the revenue allocation by $710,000. Ms. Kosnoff also announced that the Select Board would discuss the preliminary budget at its meeting on Monday, January 9. Ms. Kosnoff noted that at its January 9 meeting the Select Board will view a presentation and discuss whether to adopt a 5% cost of living adjustment (COLA) for pensions for FY2023. She further noted that the Select Board will also hear about the creation of a stormwater enterprise fund and whether such a fund would be ready to be acted upon at the 2023 annual town meeting. The stormwater enterprise fund and the associated fees could be a topic for discussion at a future AC meeting. Mr. Levine said that he had observed the Select Board budget hearings and would be interested in having a presentation at a later meeting on how the Emergency Medical Services budget works since there are no salary or wages in that part of the budget as presented to the Select Board. Adoption of 5% COLA for Retirees Ms. Kosnoff, backed up by Mr. Cunha, presented the case for adoption of a 5% COLA in FY2023 for those on Town pensions. This possibility is enabled by Massachusetts General Laws, Chapter 269 of the Acts of 2022, which allows for FY2023 a COLA of up to 5%, rather than the usual COLA limit of 3%. The COLA percentage is applied to the COLA base, which is limited to a maximum of $15,000. It was noted that the Commonwealth of Massachusetts and the Massachusetts Teachers Retirement System have both adopted the 5% COLA for FY2023, and that