2023-01-26-AC-min - Laserfiche WebLink

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01/26/2023 AC Minutes 1 Minutes Town of Lexington Appropriation Committee (AC) January 26, 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; Sean Osborne; Sanjay Padaki, Vice-Chair; Lily Manhua Yan; Carolyn Kosnoff, Assistant Town Manager, Finance (non-voting, ex officio) Members Absent: none Other Attendees: David Kanter, Capital Expenditures Committee At 7:30 p.m. Mr. Parker called the meeting to order and confirmed attendance by roll call. Mr. Levine was enlisted to take minutes and began recording the meeting for the purpose of creating minutes. Announcements and Liaison Reports Ms. Kosnoff announced that an updated White Book, i.e., the preliminary recommended budget, was published earlier in the day and would be in the packet for the January 30 budget summit meeting. Ms. Kosnoff noted that there weren’t many changes in the update, but that the section on the school budget is now included, that corrections were made to the last table outlining the 5-year capital plan in the section on capital projects, and that corrections were made to clarify that a particular program improvement will be financed from the Tourism Revolving Fund rather than the General Fund. Ms. Kosnoff also announced that staff recently spoke with representatives of Lexington’s bond rating agency and that they expect the Town to retain its Aaa rating. The Town is moving up the issuance of bonds for the construction of the new police station to this February due to concern that interest rates could rise over the next year. Ms. Kosnoff said that the interest rate on the police station bonds is expected to be in the range of 3% to 3.25%. Mr. Parker asked Ms. Kosnoff as to what can be done to facilitate sharing of budget information for local news organizations so that they do not need to, e.g., completely retype tables from the White Book or Brown Book. Ms. Kosnoff will consider how to do this. Mr. Parker noted that he had contacted Town staff about problems with the Appropriation Committee pages on the Town web site, but that the problems had not been resolved. Ms. Kosnoff said that she would speak to the staff member who maintains that part of the web site. Mr. Padaki asked that staff update the tables in Wdesk that members of the AC will use in the committee report to the annual town meeting. Review of the FY 2024 Preliminary Budget and Finance Plan Mr. Padaki asked about the changes made to get to the preliminary recommended budget, including, in particular, reconciliation of the school budget. Ms. Kosnoff said that small tweaks to the estimates of revenue and certain items in shared expenses made additional funds available. The revision to shared expenses includes a reduction in the amount for pensions related to the Lexington