Vote YES December 4. Projects won't happen without excluded debt.

While it is tempting to believe that we can undertake major building projects without using excluded debt, we cannot. The proposed savings that would hypothetically allow us to fund the construction of the three projects without a debt exclusion are theoretical and meaningfully overstated. The proposals do not take into account a number of factors that would significantly reduce the purported savings, as we discuss below.

Through prudent fiscal management the town of Lexington has saved $28M over the last five years. These savings will be used to offset the tax increases for the first five years of the projects. Any additional future savings will be similarly applied as they are realized, to decrease taxes.
Let’s look at these “savings proposals” one by one:

1. “Reassigning 3.2% of our elementary students to another school, while staying within current classroom guidelines... saves $2 million and frees up 16 classrooms” While this sounds good in theory, let’s examine the practical application and ACTUAL money saved:

• At each grade level, the proposal would consolidate classrooms to the maximum size allowed by the school committee. This is accomplished by taking students out of the classes they are already in and moving them either to a different class in the same school, or to a different school.
• Many of the students moving to different schools (around 100 students) would incur transportation costs to get to that new school. These costs are not considered in the purported savings.
• Over the last 3 years, approximately 85 new elementary students enrolled in Lexington public schools during each school year. By school committee policy (established due to the overwhelming evidence on the effects of class size on educational outcomes) any time a class goes over the maximum limits, an “overmax” aide must be hired. If most classes are already at maximum at the beginning of the school year, a number of these new student arrivals would necessitate hiring an aide, another cost not included in the calculations.
• Based on current enrollment projections *any* savings from implementing this proposal would be for the short term only.

Other practical considerations - how would the students forced to move from one school to another be selected? How exactly would the student transportation be implemented - would it require purchase of additional vehicles and drivers? There are not currently any idle vans or buses that would be available to accomplish this added transportation. The proposal does not take into account siblings, who need to be kept together.

What HAS the town/school system done? The school committee and superintendent have implemented flexible school assignments for students new to town over the past two years to equalize class sizes across schools at the educationally determined ideal sizes and save money by reducing the number of overmax aides.

Due to these savings and others, the school district has directed $23.3M into the capital stabilization fund in the last five years to offset tax increases. Further savings, as realized, will be used similarly moving forward.


2. “Raise permanently all employees' annual salaries by $7,000 and reduce the Town's 85% contribution to health premiums to 50%.... This increases or maintains total compensation for every single employee. But more married employees will subscribe to a plan from their spouse's employer, saving the Town $2.5 million (net of salary increases).”

• The town cannot unilaterally make changes to employee health insurance. Any change would require renegotiation of multiple union contracts, which is neither quick nor simple.
• There are no guarantees as to the number of employees who will choose a different plan. In order to save $2.5M, 55% of married town employees would have to choose an alternate health plan. If no employees take that option, this contract renegotiation would cost the town an additional $3.06M per year. In order to realize ANY savings, 33% of married employees would need to opt out of the town plan. These savings are NOT guaranteed.
• Raising employee salaries has effects on pension costs as well that are not considered.

What HAS the town done? Taking a more practical approach, Lexington instituted a program in 2015 which allows employees to opt out of healthcare benefits in return for a cash payment. This has realized some savings while maintaining our ability to attract and retain talented professionals.

3. “Get the State or communities sending us METCO students to fund the $2 million (or more) that the program now costs Lexington taxpayers beyond the current State subsidy of $1.5 million, or reduce the number of new METCO students accepted in Lexington each year.”

• The analysis that yields these “savings” simply multiplies the number of Boston students by the average per-pupil cost. However, actual costs are not incurred on a per-student basis, they are incurred by a group of students (e.g., a class) or a new program (e.g., addition of an elementary world language program which the school committee opted not to move forward with due to costs)
• This does not take into account the way that Boston students are placed in the schools. A new Boston student is accepted ONLY if there is space in a given classroom during the entry grades (K, 1, or 2 in elementary schools). Therefore, there are typically 0-2 Boston students per grade per elementary school. Exiting the program would not allow for dismissal of any teachers, therefore, any savings would be significantly less than $2M.

We cannot fund these building projects on hypothetical savings. We encourage residents to vote YES on Monday December 4, to allow the debt exclusion. Town managers will continue to work on savings as they have over the last five years, with additional realized savings further used to offset tax increases from excluded debt.