2009-11-12-AC-min - Laserfiche WebLink

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November 12, 2009 Minutes Town of Lexington Appropriation Committee November 12, 2009 Place and time: Town Office Building, Room G-15,730 p.m. Members present: Alan Levine (Chair), Richard Eurich, Mollie Garberg, Joe Pato, Glenn Parker (Vice- Chair), Rob Addelson (ex officio, non - voting) Also present: members of the Community Preservation Committee (CPC), Board of Selectmen (BoS), and Capital Expenditures Committee (CEC), Carl Valente (Town Manager), Nathalie Rice (CPC staff), and others The meeting was called to order at 7:35 p.m. The first part of this meeting was a joint meeting of the CPC, BoS, CEC, and Appropriation Committee and roughly followed the agenda circulated by the CPC. Rob Addelson led off this joint meeting by reviewing his projection of Community Preservation revenues and currently foreseen expenses and how the various Community Preservation reserve accounts would or could be affected. Carl Valente presented a set of draft financing guidelines which included, among its provisions, a target of maintaining $2,500,000 in total in the various reserves. There was general discussion of how to allocate the funds to be held in reserve to the specific designated accounts, i.e., those for open space, historic preservation, and affordable housing, or to the unspecified community preservation reserve account. Many of the comments indicated a preference that reserve funds be held in the unspecified account when possible to maximize future flexibility as opposed to having target balances of $500,000 in each of the specific reserves as stated in Carl's draft. The idea that there be a target of approximately $2,500,000 for the balance of reserves after deducting the appropriations made at an annual town meeting did not receive much criticism. There was also general discussion of the use of debt vs. cash. George Burnell referred to Rob Addelson's projection in which the 2010 Annual Town Meeting would have approximately $10M available for Community Preservation project cash appropriations and stated that it is not desirable to maintain cash reserves at a much higher level than the target of $2,500,000 and that the use of cash rather than debt is appropriate when reserves are so high. Many of the other comments indicated preferences that borrowing only be done if necessary and that the terms be kept to five or ten years at most. There was general discussion of the projects, such as the Stone building, the Fire Station, and the Police Station among many others, that are on the CPC's future projects list. The CEC urged the CPC to have a more concrete plan for future CPA spending. -1-