HomeMy WebLinkAbout2026-01-08-AC-min.pdf1/8/2026 AC Minutes
Minutes
Town of Lexington Appropriation Committee (AC)
January 8, 2026
Place and Time: Remote participation via a Zoom teleconferencing session that was open to the
public; 7:30 p.m.
Members Present: Glenn Parker, Chair; Sanjay Padaki, Vice -Chair; Alan Levine, Secretary; Anil
Ahuja; John Bartenstein; Sean Osborne; Vinita Verma; Lily Yan; Carolyn Kosnoff, Assistant Town
Manager, Finance (non-voting, ex officio)
Members Absent: Eric Michelson
Other Attendees: Charles Lamb, Capital Expenditures Committee (CEC); Lisah Rhodes, CEC
All votes recorded below were conducted by roll call.
At 7:33 p.m. Mr. Parker called the meeting to order and took attendance by roll call.
Announcements and Liaison Reports
Mr. Levine noted that the School Building Committee will meet on Monday, January 12, 2026, at
12 p.m. Ms. Kosnoff and Mr. Lamb added that the only financially relevant agenda item would be
on targeted value design.
Ms. Verma reported that the Community Preservation Committee has put forward a list of projects
with associated appropriation requests that will be the subject of Article 10 at the Annual Town
Meeting (ATM).
Mr. Ahuja and Ms. Rhodes attended an Ad Hoc Crematory Study Committee II meeting on January
7. That committee has not yet reached decisions on final recommendations.
Review January 7 Budget Summit
Mr. Parker summarized the summit by saying that the School Department appears to be a bit ahead
of the municipal side in arriving at a balanced budget. Ms. Kosnoff agreed and added that some of
the methods used to balance the budgets will have (negative) consequences in future fiscal years.
She said that the operating budget for municipal departments is voted department by department
whereas the school budget is a single budget line item. That limits the flexibility on the municipal
side because funds cannot be transferred between departments; the school department does not have
an analogous constraint.
Mr. Osborne asked when budget cuts may materially affect levels of service. Mr. Bartenstein asked
about budgets in future fiscal years given the tightness of the FY2027 budget. Mr. Bartenstein also
asked about whether anyone has done an analysis of the changes in head (employee) count over,
e.g., the last 10 years to understand the benefits of having a larger staff.
Ms. Kosnoff responded by saying that she is concerned mainly about future fiscal years. She re-em-
phasized that much of the ability to keep present levels of service is threatened by potential large
increases in future health insurance premiums that will consume most or all of the growth in reve-
nue. Given the large increases in the premiums from FY2025 to FY2026 and from FY2026 to
FY2027 she will not be surprised by additional large increases. She also pointed out that the Brown
Book includes tables listing employee positions and that the head count numbers are summarized in
the Brown Book exposition of health insurance expenses.
1/8/2026 AC Minutes
Mr. Bartenstein raised the topic of Lexpress and new buses for Lexpress. Ms. Kosnoff stated that
the contractor will buy and own the buses, but the contract fees incorporate the amortized cost of
the new buses. The Lexpress contract has been signed which would make it difficult to cut back on
Lexpress expenses.
Planning for the Committee's Report to the 2026 Annual Town Meeting
Mr. Parker shared a list of tasks that are performed as part of issuing a report to town meeting and
reviewed the items on the list. He is interested in delegating more of the effort to others on the
Committee. He has added a document with basic article data, an article assignment spreadsheet, a
sheet with Committee votes for each article, and a sheet for meeting planning to the Wdesk 2026
report folder "FY2027 Budget Source Data".
Ms. Kosnoff pointed out that Wdesk can put colored dots next to items in a table of contents where
the color of the dot indicates the status of that section. This could help make progress on the report
or lack thereof apparent without having to scan the entire document.
Mr. Levine suggested that he and likely other Committee members could benefit from having addi-
tional training in the use of Wdesk and that the Committee should consider arranging an in-person
session training session.
Mr. Lamb said that the "suggested changes" feature is quite useful.
The Committee went through the list of articles and assigned members to author and reviewer roles
for each article or article subsection (see the article assignment spreadsheet).
Future Meeting Schedule
The Committee reviewed the Committee meeting schedule and made suggestions for agenda topics
together with people to invite to discuss specific articles.
Minutes of Prior Meetings
Minutes for the meeting of December 4, 2025, were approved by a vote of 8-0.
Adjourn
The meeting was adjourned at 9:38 p.m.
Respectfully submitted,
Alan M. Levine
Approved: January 22, 2026
Exhibits
• Agenda, posted by Mr. Parker
• List of Committee report tasks
• Article author and reviewer assignments