Lexington budget vote further postponed after “confusing” School Committee memo

A vote on Lexington’s fiscal year 2027 budget will be postponed until after budget summit participants can reconvene, Lexington Select Board Chair Jill Hai announced at the top of Town Meeting on Monday night. No date has been set for that budget summit meeting, Hai told the Observer. 

Her announcement came after School Committee Chair Eileen Jay sent a memo to Town Meeting Members Sunday night. The memo details the School Committee’s stance on the budget and Town Meeting Member Dawn McKenna’s proposed amendment to it. 

Town Meeting’s vote on the FY27 budget was tabled during the first night of Town Meeting’s annual session last week after about two hours of debate. Due to budget constraints, LPS must cut the equivalent of about 65 full time positions and 160 non-professional staff (with the expectation that some would be re-hired or re-assigned to open roles within the district). McKenna proposed an amendment to the budget, asking the town to use $1.25 million of Free Cash (a pot of one-time-use money) to save some LPS employees from being cut. 

The memo sent out Sunday night notes the School Committee supports passing the FY27 budget with McKenna’s amendment. Before McKenna presented her amendment last Monday, the School Committee unanimously supported passing the budget as it. 

“The cuts now under consideration are not driven by educational strategy. They are driven by short-term financial pressure. The McKenna Amendment gives us the chance to manage this transition responsibly,” the School Committee wrote in the memo. 

Hai found the memo, and the School Committee’s support of McKenna’s amendment, confusing. 

“A lot of people found it highly confusing, contradictory, in-error, frankly,” Hai said during a Select Board meeting on Monday evening before Town Meeting, calling the memo “befuddling.”

Hai was confused why the memo cites the town’s 2024 Moody’s credit rating when there is a more recent 2026 one.

Hai noted the memo created waves of confusion among Town Meeting members on the Town Meeting Members Association list (a communication channel for Town Meeting members).

All the Select Board members said they do not support McKenna’s amendment during the meeting. Town Manager Steve Bartha called it a “reckless proposal.”

Town Meeting also paused voting on the consent agenda, which includes articles that affect the town’s operating budget. It removed articles from the consent agenda that do not affect the operating budget and voted on a few of those, however. That includes Articles 10c, 10d, 10e, and 10f, which ask the town to approve of Community Preservation Act (or CPA) related projects. 

Many Town Meeting members were confused about how they were able to vote on those projects without voting on the budget. The short answer? The projects aren’t funded by the town’s operating budget. They’re funded with CPA money which comes from a surcharge on residents’ property taxes that are matched (to varying degrees year-to-year) by the state. Lexington implemented that surcharge in 2008. 

There are three categories (or buckets) of projects that CPA funding can be used for: community housing, historic resources, and open space. A predetermined percentage of money goes toward each bucket. 

Town Meeting members voted on whether or not the town move forward with the projects that will be funded by the money in the buckets. 

Here’s more on those projects: 

Article 10f: Playground infrastructure upgrades 

This motion asks the town to use $100,000 of CPA funding to install fences at Bridge and Fiske elementary schools. Mike Cronin, director of public facilities, noted how strangers have walked off the street and approached the playground, as have coyotes. The fences would have gates on them. 

Many town meeting members worried the fences could cause injuries because children like to climb over fences. 

Twenty-year-old Town Meeting Member Kunal Botla, of Precinct 4, noted he’s likely “the most recent child” in the room and recalled how four of his friends broke limbs in one week due to climbing over a fence when he was in elementary school. He urged Town Meeting members to vote no on the motion. 

Some argued the fences would restrict children from running around and exploring during recess. 

“Kids don’t want to be enclosed, most parents don’t want them to be enclosed,” Ryan Wise, a representative of Precinct 6, said. “They need to run, they love to run, I don’t understand where this is coming from so I hope this is voted down and revisited in 6 months with a better plan.” 

Deepika Sawhney, a Town Meeting member from Precinct 6, argued putting up signs to direct members of the public not to walk across the playgrounds during school could be sufficient. 

The motion failed with about 34 percent support. The CPA funding will subsequently sit in that bucket’s account and can be used for future projects that fall under that bucket. It cannot be used for budgetary items outside the scope of that bucket. 

Article 10c: Affordable Housing Trust funding

This asks the town to put $3.2 million of CPA funding toward creating and preserving affordable housing units in town. 

The Trust has used such funding to create Lexington Woods, a 100 percent affordable housing development coming to the corner of Lowell and North streets, in the past. The presentation on this article notes the Trust is working on a similar project on Vine Street that this funding could go toward. 

The motion passed with over 90 percent support.

Article 10e: Community Preservation Funds 

This motion asks for the town to use about $2.6 million in CPA funding to complete the second phase of the Harrington Fields project. The second phase involves constructing the two natural-grass athletic fields. 

It passed with about 98 percent in support.

Article 10d: LexHAB funding

This motion asks the town to use for just over $395,000 of CPA funding to preserve, rehab, and restore about 30 dwelling units in town. The money would also “support” about 20 units, meaning help rent-insecure people pay rent and fees, Sarah Morrison, the executive director of LexHAB explained in her presentation. 

This passed with 100 percent support.

Town Meeting also looked at a motion under Article 12, which is not related to the Community Preservation Act. 

Article 12b: Connecting Minuteman bikeway to LHS

This asks the town for $180,000 to fund a study on how to connect the Minuteman Bikeway to Lexington High School. The funding would also go toward creating of an early design of that connection. 

The article passed with about 90 percent support.

Town Meeting will reconvene on Wednesday, April 8, at 7:30 p.m. at Cary Hall. The public can tune in by attending in-person or watching live on LexMedia.

Correction: An earlier version of this article stated Select Board member Joe Pato said he was concerned the School Committee’s memo was AI-generated. Pato later explained he was worried some documents Town Meeting Member Dawn McKenna sent on the TMMA list Sunday night were AI-generated.