Participants in Lexington’s budget summits convened on June 10 to discuss how to address upcoming fiscal year 2028 budget summits to avoid another rift at Town Meeting next year.
The group includes members of the Select Board, Capital Expenditures Committee, Appropriation Committee, and School Committee. Some town and school staff, who also attend budget summits, attended last week’s meeting, too.
In addition to talking about how to stay on the same page once the budget is brought before Town Meeting for a vote, the group discussed which budget items will need to be considered more granularly.
Last week’s meeting came almost two months after Town Meeting’s 2026 annual session wrapped on May 5. The Select Board had to pause Town Meeting’s vote on the FY2027 budget after the School Committee declared support of an amendment to the budget proposed by a Town Meeting member, though all summit members had agreed to the budget before Town Meeting. That led to delaying Town Meeting’s vote on the budget for about a month (the budget ultimately passed with a compromise solution).
Many members agreed the summit should avoid a schism like that next year.
“We need a commitment that once we nod our heads in agreement, we are all committed to that,” Charles Lamb, chair of the Capitol Expenditures Committee, said during the meeting. “We cannot do this again.”
Lamb asked the group to let the summit know if they are not in support of the agreed-upon budget so there is not another “food fight” at Town Meeting.
School Committee members did not feel there was a “food fight,” however. Lexington Public Schools Superintendent Julie Hackett explained that she and the School Committee heard the proposed amendment on the floor, felt it was a good idea, and expressed their support accordingly.
LPS was a focal point of last week’s meeting. Hackett and School Committee members asked for more floor time to explain their budgetary needs during summits and more collaboration from the municipal side to better understand district needs.
“The disconnect [between the school and municipal sides] went very public,” School Committee member Larry Freeman noted.
Sarah Carter, a member of the School Committee, asked that summit members from the Select Board, Capitol Expenditures Committee, and Appropriation Committee come to School Committee meetings to better understand what’s on their plate.
“One of the things that I have found has been really helpful for me, being on a committee, is being a liaison to another committee where I go and I sit and I regularly hear what they’re doing,” she said. “I would really recommend that the [Appropriation Committee’s] liaison to the School Committee regularly come to our meetings…to have an understanding of what we’re doing, and that’s not happening right now.”
Hackett also asked the room for more time to discuss the school side of the budget during summits. As past budget summits have played out (according to recordings of FY27 budget summits), the municipal side takes around 30 minutes to an hour to walk through a presentation and then the school side gets about ten or 20 minutes to do the same.
“I have a $150 million budget and often I have 5, 10, 15 minutes to talk about it with summit,” she stated. “That’s not enough time…you as a summit have to take some time to talk about the issues and I don’t know how you do that when every summit is taken up with presentation.”
Multiple members asked the summit to omit long presentations at future budget meetings. Members agreed it would be more productive to spend budget summit time engaging in discourse instead of watching a long presentation, leaving little time for back-and-forth discussion at the end.
Also pertaining to LPS, Hackett asked summit members to prioritize discussing teacher compensation at upcoming summits, arguing Lexington needs to ensure it’s as competitive as it can be.
“People are paying attention to this,” Hackett told the summit. “It’s a recruitment tool and that has implications to the town.”
The LPS presence was felt at last week’s meeting. Lexington Education Association president, Robin Strizhak, asked teachers to attend the meeting. Over 1,000 LEA members are in the process of bargaining for new contracts.
About a dozen LEA members attended the summit in person, and about 80 more online, Strizhak said.
“We should all be educated as to how the town creates a budget…[and] the schools are severely underfunded and that affects programs and services without a doubt,” Strizhak wrote to the Observer. “The schools are not being greedy — we want ALL of ‘our’ kids to get the best educational experience humanly possible and that means we have to be willing to pay for it.”
Sustainability is another topic that came up a few times at last week’s meeting. Lexington has installed several solar arrays and panels in the last few years, which are meant to not only save the town money, but make money by storing energy in backup batteries. Lexington will also get rebates from the state and (maybe) federal governments for purchasing the green technology.
Alan Levine of the Appropriation Committee spoke up to say the summit should further discuss finding more of those opportunities.
Asked how Lexington can use the rebates it will get for the projects it has already done, assistant town manager for finance, Carolyn Kosnoff, said it is too early to have that discussion.
“For the LHS project, we are expecting some very large rebates in the hundreds of thousands of dollars, potentially,” she said. “We don’t expect that a lot of those will be coming in until the 2030 to 2031 range.”
The rebates will go back into the town’s general fund and essentially become free cash, Kosnoff explained.
Mark Sandeen, a Select Board member, asked if the rebates could be used to offset operating costs. Kosnoff said that’s tricky because the rebates aren’t considered recurring funds, so relying on that funding year-to-year to offset operating costs isn’t a good idea.
In fact, using one-time funds for the operating costs is something Jill Hai, chair of the Select Board, said (with the room’s support) the summit will not do. The room agreed no deeper discussion was needed on that topic.
Members also asked the summit to further discuss how to continue the Capital Stabilization Fund. A few people also noted it would be a good exercise to reexamine the money in the towns’ many reserve funds.
A presentation given by Hai noted that budget summit members will spend time identifying budget challenges and considering new revenue opportunities in future meetings.
At the end of the meeting, Hai suggested the next step would be for chairs of the committees and board in the budget summit — that is, her; Lamb; Glen Parker, chair of the Appropriation Committee; and Larry Freeman, chair of the School Committee — meet to discuss next steps.
Hai noted summit members will likely have to do some summer work to be best set up for a successful series of budget summits in a few months.
“If we’re going to undertake this work, we’ve got to do it now,” said Hai.