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2/8/2024 AC Minutes 1 Minutes Town of Lexington Appropriation Committee (AC) February 8, 2024 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; Carolyn Kosnoff, Assistant Town Man- ager, Finance (non-voting, ex officio) Members Absent: Lily Yan Other Attendees: Charles Lamb, Capital Expenditures Committee (CEC); David Kanter, CEC; Elaine Tung, Chair, Affordable Housing Trust (AHT); Linda Prosnitz, AHT; Carol Kowalski, As- sistant Town Manager for Development; Lisah Rhodes, CEC; Bob Pressman, Community Preserva- tion Committee (CPC); Margaret Heitz; Harriet Cohen (8:05) At 7:34 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. Michelson reported that the Town had received notification of the final value of Minuteman Regional High School’s annual assessment for FY2025, which will be $3,406,394. Ms. Kosnoff reported that the Town’s Free Cash was certified earlier in the week by the Dept of Revenue at just over $17 million. The operating budget estimate had been $16.5 million, so the ex- cess will be applied to cash capital. She then reported that the Town had sold $9.5 million in munic- ipal bonds at a rate of about 2.25%, which she affirmed was a very good result. As liaison to the School Building Committee, Mr. Levine reported that the architects had distributed a draft report of existing conditions, a large document covering a range of topics, such as a traffic study, environmental studies, wetlands, and code compliance. Article 10(i): Affordable Housing Trust Funding Ms. Tung stated that video and slide presentations on Article 10(i) were available on the Town web- site, and that she had also shared a memorandum with Mr. Parker. Mr. Parker responded that he had shared the memorandum and related documents with the Committee. Ms. Tung noted that Article 10(i) is a joint request from the Select Board and the AHT for $3.2 mil- lion from CPA funds which would fund the AHT for FY2025. She stated that LexHAB’s costs have risen significantly over the past few years, such that they would have difficulty purchasing a property now without additional funding, which the AHT was established to provide. LexHAB has applied, via a home rule petition to the state legislature, for nonprofit 501(c)(3) status which they hope to receive by the end of June, after which they will want to put the Vine St. project out to bid. Ms. Tung noted that the Lexington Housing Authority is hoping to transform 17 single-family sites into two-family sites per HUD guidance, which would also require funding from the AHT, but probably not in the coming year.