2023-10-26-AC-min - Laserfiche WebLink

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10/26/2023 AC Minutes 1 Minutes Town of Lexington Appropriation Committee (AC) October 26, 2023 Place and Time: Remote participation via a Zoom teleconferencing session that was open to the public; 7:30 p.m.–9:30 p.m. Members Present: Glenn Parker, Chair; Sanjay Padaki, Vice-Chair; Alan Levine, Secretary; Anil Ahuja; John Bartenstein; Eric Michelson; Sean Osborne; Lily Manhua Yan; Carolyn Kosnoff, As- sistant Town Manager, Finance (non-voting, ex officio) Members Absent: none Other Attendees: none At 7:35 p.m., Mr. Parker called the meeting to order and took attendance by roll call. All votes recorded below were conducted by roll call. Announcements and Liaison Reports Mr. Levine commented that earlier discussions about the architectural firm, SMMA, which has been chosen as the design partner for Lexington High School, incorrectly indicated that they had de- signed the new Maria Hastings School in Lexington. SMMA did create a Master Plan for the schools several years ago, but the high school will be their first actual school building design in Lexington, at least in the last ten years. Ms. Kosnoff reported that the Select Board had held a hearing regarding setting the FY 2024 tax rate on the past Monday evening. If the Select Board continues to apply the maximum allowable shift and the effects of new growth are removed, the average tax bill will increase by about 2.8%. Ms. Kosnoff also reported that the Select Board held a hearing on the water and wastewater rates at the Monday evening meeting. One comment was received that advocated for a reduced rate for small businesses like restaurants that use a lot of water. Final Votes for the Committee’s Report to Special Town Meeting 2023-1 Mr. Parker led the Committee through a review of all the articles covered in the Committee’s report and collected the votes of members who were absent at the prior week’s meeting. Article 2 Appropriate for Prior Years’ Unpaid Bills Mr. Osborne and Ms. Yan voted to recommend approval of the appropriation under this article. The Committee now recommends approval by a vote of 8-0. Article 3 Establish, Amend, Dissolve and Appropriate To and From Specified Stabilization Funds Ms. Kosnoff confirmed that the dollar figures in Articles 3 and 4 had been updated to reflect a $28,000 drop in the requested addition to the Facilities budget (Article 4), and the addition of that $28,000 to the amount to be appropriated into the Capital Stabilization Fund (Article 3). The Committee voted to recommend approval of Article 3 by a vote of 8-0. Article 4 Amend FY2024 Operating, Enterprise and CPA Budgets Ms. Kosnoff noted that the requested increase in the Public Facilities Department budget is $85,000 to cover the adoption of the maintenance of 5 buildings which includes the new Westview Cemetery