HomeMy WebLinkAbout2006-07-26-AC-min
July 26, 2006
Minutes
Town of Lexington Appropriation Committee
July 26, 2006
Members Present: A. Levine (Chair), D. Brown (Vice Chair), D. Kanter, R. Cole,
M. Kennealy, J. Bartenstein, E. Michelson, P. Hoffman, R. Addelson (non-voting)
Additional Attendees: Paul Hamburger, John Fedorochko
The meeting was called to order at 7:40 by Al L. in Room G-15, Town Office
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Building.
1. Rod C. agreed to take minutes.
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2. A minor correction to the May 18 minutes was accepted by a vote of 6-0.
3. Officers were selected by unanimous votes: Al L. for Chairman, Deborah B. for Vice
Chairman, and John B. for Secretary.
4. The primary topic of discussion was the report of the Selectmen’s Ad Hoc Financial
Policy Committee.
The goals listed in the report were discussed and it was decided they were all reasonable
goals. P. Hamburger noted that it might be useful to set priorities among the goals as
there will be times when the town cannot meet each goal simultaneously. Further, as part
of that process we may want to adopt an overarching goal, something like operate town
finances in a way we’d be proud to have on the front page of the newspaper.
The recommendations for capital-financing policies were discussed in detail. Some issues
with the recommendations were noted, such as the desirability and feasibility of moving
to a cash only policy, and the problem that the concept of “fully fund” is not defined.
Despite these issues, there was a consensus that it is very important that detailed analyses
of the existing capital assets and estimates of the required work and costs to properly
maintain them need to be generated as a first step. Once the annualized cost to properly
maintain the town’s assets is known, the policy should set this amount as the spending
goal. This goal might be stated in a number of ways. There was a preference for a policy
that tied the amount directly to the value of the Town’s assets such as “X percent of the
total value of the Town’s capital assets”. While it was noted that in practice this might be
little different than a policy like we have now of “X percent of town expenses”, some felt
that there is an important philosophical difference in having the policy explicitly based on
asset value.
There was a general consensus that we then need a policy that the town spends this
amount of money each year, through either debt or cash, and that it would be useful to
have a policy that cash is generally preferable to debt. It was noted that there needs to be
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a recognition that at times this policy will conflict with other policies such as maintaining
town services.
5. We were given a heads up that the schools were having trouble balancing their books
to close out FY2006, with a possible overrun of several 10s of thousands of dollars.
6. We were also given a heads up that the FY2007 State aid may come in approximately
$700k higher than expected.
The meeting was adjourned at 9:42 .
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Respectfully submitted,
Rod Cole
Approved September 14, 2006
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