HomeMy WebLinkAbout2023-02-02-AC-min 02/02/2023 AC Minutes
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Minutes
Town of Lexington Appropriation Committee (AC)
February 2, 2023
Place and Time: Remote Participation: in accordance with “An Act Relative to Extending Certain
State of Emergency Accommodations”, signed into law by Gov. Baker on July 16, 2022,
communication took place via a Zoom teleconferencing session that was open to the public; 7:30
p.m.
Members Present: Glenn Parker, Chair; Sanjay Padaki, Vice-Chair; Anil Ahuja; John Bartenstein;
Alan Levine, Secretary; Eric Michelson; Carolyn Kosnoff, Assistant Town Manager, Finance
(non-voting, ex officio)
Member(s) Absent: Sean Osborne; Lily Manhua Yan
Other Attendees: David Kanter, Capital Expenditures Committee
At 7:34 p.m. Mr. Parker confirmed attendance by roll call and stated that the meeting was being
recorded for the purpose of creating minutes. Mr. Michelson agreed to take minutes in the absence
of a recording secretary.
Announcements and Liaison Reports
Mr. Parker reported that he emailed the agenda of the upcoming Select Board meeting to the
Committee. He also sent Committee members new links to the Appropriation Committee’s page on
the Town of Lexington’s website. He then went to our page and shared his screen to show the new
file structure for the Committee’s document-sharing pages. Currently, Mr. Parker is the only
Committee member with permission to modify the Committee’s pages; he proposed giving such
permission to the other Committee officers.
Annual Town Meeting Report and Articles
Mr. Parker has posted a skeleton draft of the Annual Town Meeting (ATM) 2023 report on Wdesk.
The draft report contains each of the articles we intend to report on. Currently each article has the
wording from the draft warrant. He then reviewed the procedures for using Wdesk. Article authors
and reviewers will have editing rights for their sections, and all committee members will be able to
add comments to any part of the report. He also described how members can use Wdesk features
including the document history, and also noted that the “publish” function must be exercised to
update links.
The Committee then began a discussion about what is needed to gather the information necessary to
evaluate the articles to be reported on and to complete our ATM report. It was suggested that the
following people be invited to attend upcoming meetings: Town Manager Mr. Malloy, Facilities
Director Mr. Cronin, Public Works Director Mr. Pinsonneault, a representative from the Lexington
Public Schools, and a representative from Minuteman Regional High School. The Committee was
asked to suggest questions to ask each person. This is a summary of that discussion:
Mr. Malloy – steps taken to balance the FY24 budget; Program Improvement Requests
(PIRs) requested and deferred; LexPress; trash collection – details of new contract, food
composting, recycling programs and trends, establishment of revolving fund
Mr. Cronin – solar initiatives, energy expenses, capital planning issues
02/02/2023 AC Minutes
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Mr. Pinsonneault – details of trash collection challenges, equipment replacement, storm
water issues
Lexington Public Schools – What will happen if the teachers’ contract settlement exceeds
the amount in the budget?
Mr. Parker asked Committee members to send him any additional questions, which he will submit
to each person prior to their appearance.
Ms. Kosnoff reported that the Brown Book is nearing completion and is expected to be released on
February 17. She anticipates it will have very few changes from the White Book, and she will make
a red line version available. The Select Board will vote on the budget at their February 13 meeting.
Ms. Kosnoff also shared information on some of the questions of interest:
LexPress – the FY24 recommended budget includes level funding which will not be able to
support level service. The current contract expires at the end of FY23. Ridership and
revenue have plummeted and management is questioning what form the service should take
moving forward. The Select Board is creating an ad hoc committee to recommend how to
best provide the service, and will ask if the AC and CEC will designate liaisons.
Additional Fire Inspector – the request is driven by the current lack of personnel to complete
required commercial inspections in a timely manner. This delay affects the issuance of
occupancy permits for new and continuing projects, and can affect new growth tax revenue.
This is one of the rejected PIRs.
Trash – The $1 million increase in the collections contract is one of the drivers of the
municipal budget shortfall. Possible ways to mitigate the increase that are being examined
include a food composting trial, a large item collection fee, and ways to implement fees
under the current bylaw requiring that the Town provide a free method to dispose of trash.
Energy – the electric generation rates are contracted through FY24.
Mr. Padaki will distribute an article he read in the “Guardian” on potential problems with certain
types of investments made by pension funds. It is unclear whether the article describes private
sector funds or government funds, which would have different investment rules and parameters.
Minutes of Prior Meetings
Mr. Michelson moved to approve the meeting minutes from 1/11/23, 1/19/23 and 1/26/23, with
edits suggested by Mr. Padaki. The motion passed by roll call vote. VOTE: 6-0
Adjourn
The meeting was adjourned by roll call vote at 8:33 p.m.
Respectfully submitted,
Eric Michelson
Approved: February 23, 2023
Exhibits
● Agenda, posted by Mr. Parker