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Home My WebLink About2026-02-05-AC-min.pdf 2/5/2026 AC Minutes 1 Minutes Town of Lexington Appropriation Committee (AC) February 5, 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; Eric Michelson; Sean Osborne; Vinita Verma; Lily Yan; Carolyn Kosnoff, Assistant Town Manager, Finance (non-voting, ex officio) Members Absent: none Other Attendees: LexMedia; Charles Lamb, Capital Expenditures Committee (CEC); Lisah Rhodes, CEC; Rod Cole, CEC; Leonard Morse-Fortier; Priya Patel; Tom Shiple; Jonathan Himmel, Permanent Building Committee (PBC); Mike Cronin, Director of Public Facilities; Gauri Govil; Deepika Sawhney; Sudha Cheruku; Santosh Khedkar; Paul R.; Shreyas Chakravarti; Meg Khanolkar; Olivia Bennett All votes recorded below were conducted by roll call. At 7:36 p.m. Mr. Parker called the meeting to order and took attendance by roll call. Announcements and Liaison Reports Ms. Kosnoff reported that the amount of free cash has been certified at an amount just slightly above that used for budget development. Staff will revise the budget program summary to reflect the certified amount and will present that summary to the Select Board. She also reported that staff plan to publish the Brown Book (final recommended budget) on February 20. Mr. Levine reported that the School Building Committee (SBC) met on Monday, February 2, 2026, and plans to meet next Friday, February 13, 2026. Project design data reflecting the detailed design will be submitted to the cost estimators on February 20. The new cost estimate should be received in the second half of March. The SBC plans to meet to review the new estimate in late March and again in April. If the new cost estimate is too high, the SBC will need to consider accepting cost- saving measures on the value engineering list. Mr. Michelson reported that he had received the final budget from Minuteman Regional High School but had not yet reviewed it. If he has questions after doing his review, he will arrange a meeting with a representative of the school. Discussion of Financial Articles for the 2026 Annual Town Meeting Article 26 Financial Oversight of the LHS project (citizen petition) Mr. Parker noted that the proponents of this article, i.e., Gauri Govil and Deepika Sawhney were in attendance as were Jon Himmel, co-chair of the PBC, and Mike Cronin, Director of Public Facilities. Ms. Sawhney added that one other member of their team, Sudha Cheruku, was also in attendance. Ms. Govil stated that their aim is “to strengthen public trust, improve financial transparency, and support the successful delivery of Lexington's largest public school building project. We fully respect the work of the SBC, PBC, and the town staff, and our proposal simply adds a temporary independent advisory committee of residents with expertise in auditing, construction, finance, 2/5/2026 AC Minutes 2 procurement and large-scale project delivery. This group would provide real-time financial review and share any concerns with existing committees without managing contracts or altering anyone's authority.” Mr. Padaki asked about the motion for the article. He was informed that it is on the Town Meeting web page. The text of the motion was briefly shared on the Zoom screen. Mr. Levine said that he supports the goal of providing good financial information on the project to the public. However, he noted that the proponents want the proposed committee to review project payment streams and identify opportunities for savings based on those reviews. However, payments are made after work is done or goods are delivered, i.e., too late to affect the work or the goods. He also noted that the project designers will finish the detailed design within one or two months. The detailed design is the last of the phases of the project where major efficiencies and savings are likely to be identifiable. He asked how the proponents would respond. Ms. Cheruku responded by noting that the state of California has a law, passed as Proposition 39, that mandates the establishment of citizen boards to look at all expenditures of bond revenues for the purpose of informing the public. Those boards may also review project plans with the goal of reducing the project costs. The present goal is to get a committee of citizens with professional expertise to inform the public about the project expenditures and to identify opportunities for cost savings. Ms. Sawhney said that the SBC may be doing some of these tasks, but that she was unable to find a statement of the charge to the SBC on the Town or SBC web site. Ms. Sawhney also said that she and her team members have looked into the payment workflow process for the LHS project by speaking with staff and key committee members. It appears to her that the payment workflow does not impose reporting standards to make the process efficient. Mr. Levine replied that review of invoices is a staff function and not appropriate for a citizen’s committee. Mr. Michelson asked whether there is an example of a previous Town of Lexington project where a committee analogous to that proposed under Article 26 would have had a positive impact. Ms. Sawhney responded by saying that Turner Construction claims that they typically return 30% to 38% of contingency funds – why can’t that be 70%? Mr. Himmel reviewed the professional experience of members of the PBC. He then stated that there are multiple reviews of requisitions by the OPM among others that are important and that additional reviews by a committee are unlikely to be useful. He further stated that he thought the focus should be on getting information to the public. In response to a question from Mr. Bartenstein, Ms. Kosnoff and Mr. Cronin both expressed the opinion that a citizen’s committee that reviews all payment requisitions would require substantial support from staff and possibly necessitate hiring someone for the support role. Mr. Cronin said that a financial dashboard (web page) could be a good way to provide more easily digestible financial information to the public. A dashboard would not require additional staff; the OPM could be instructed to assist with the effort to create a dashboard and keep it up to date. Ms. Kosnoff and Mr. Cronin explained that for the parts of the project that are categorized as larger filed sub-bids, the amount to be paid for each subcontract is typically set via contract rather than by adding up the subcontractor’s costs. 2/5/2026 AC Minutes 3 Mr. Ahuja asked Ms. Sawhney whether the proposed committee’s review of expenses would be done after the fact. She agreed that it would. He then asked Mr. Cronin whether a dashboard could allow residents to track expenses on contracts and line items, year-to-date expenses, and whether the project is over or under budget. Mr. Cronin said that the dashboard could be built to accommodate these items and more and that he would welcome input from the residents as to what information they would like to see. Mr. Ahuja then asked Mr. Cronin whether someone could be made available to residents to answer questions about expenses. Mr. Cronin responded in the affirmative. Mr. Padaki questioned the time and training it would take for volunteer members of the public to get trained and come up to speed on the process as evidenced by the time it has taken the petitioners to do the same. By the time a committee is formed and comes up to speed, the opportunity to effect changes to the project that would materially impact costs would be lost. Future Meeting Schedule After some discussion, the Committee decided not to meet on February 12 because the meeting would overlap with the local League of Women Voters Candidates’ Night. Minutes of Prior Meetings Minutes for the meeting of January 29, 2026, were approved by a vote of 9-0. Adjourn The meeting was adjourned at 9:24 p.m. Respectfully submitted, Alan M. Levine Approved: February 19, 2026 Exhibits ● Agenda, posted by Mr. Parker