2012-01-19-AC-min - Laserfiche WebLink

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January 19, 2012 Minutes Town of Lexington Appropriation Committee Meeting January 19, 2012 Time and Location: Selectmen's Meeting Room, Town Office Building, 7:30 p.m. Members Present: Glenn Parker, Chair; John Bartenstein, Vice Chair and Secretary; Joe Pato, Vice Chair; Alan Levine; Eric Michelson; Richard Neumeier; Jonina Schonfeld; Rob Addelson (non- voting, ex officio) Others in Attendance: Theo Kalivas, Budget Officer The meeting was called to order at 7:36 p.m. Alan Levine agreed to take minutes. 1. Minutes The status of minutes from previous meetings was reviewed. John noted that he had a question about handling minutes of the recent executive sessions regarding health insurance. He agreed to look into the matter. 2. Reports of Liaisons Jonina and Joe gave very brief reports about School Committee and Board of Selectmen meetings. Jonina agreed to continue to cover School Committee meetings and will ask Mollie to join in this effort. Joe will try to cover Board of Selectmen meetings and Glenn will try to attend CEC meetings. 3. Report Strategies and Assignments Glenn stated that a major goal of this meeting is to look over the draft warrant and to start to make work assignments. He also urged the Committee to rethink the Committee's report to Town Meeting by reconsidering the content and even the goals of the report, and to not only focus on what town meeting members are interested in reading in the report but also on what the Committee thinks would be most valuable for them to read. The question was raised as to what fiscal policies the Committee follows in formulating recommendations and drafting the report. A general discussion followed regarding who had made and who is making fiscal policies and where they are codified. The sense of the response to the question was that there are some aspects of adoption of a budget that are governed by laws, bylaws, or regulations, such as that the Town budget must be balanced in order to set a tax rate. Beyond these basics, the fiscal policies that have been adopted by the Board of Selectmen from time to time and that have been recommended by panels appointed by the Board, often are worth following, but are not binding on this Committee or Town Meeting. The Committee agreed to discuss this topic further at a future meeting. The Committee reopened the topic of reviewing "boiler plate" material and attempting to put such background information into appendices so that seasoned town meeting members do not