Lexington Budget Summit Finds Partial Fix for $4.7 Million Fiscal 2027 Gap

LEXINGTON — January 7, 2026 — Lexington's four-board budget summit found a partial fix for a $4.7 million fiscal 2027 gap but left officials warning of deeper structural problems ahead. Assistant Town Manager for Finance Carolyn Koznoff told the joint January 7 meeting of the Select Board, Appropriation Committee, Capital Expenditures Committee, and School Committee that revised revenue projections raised the total new revenue allocation by $2.3 million to $7 million, lifting the allocation rate to 3.6 percent, while $897,000 in one-time free cash was used to close the remaining operating gap — a sum Town Manager Steve Bartha called "three-tenths of 1 percent of our $315 million operating budget" but acknowledged will create a starting deficit heading into fiscal 2028. The school department balanced its proposed budget at the same 3.6 percent increase only by cutting 42 full-time equivalent positions from the fiscal 2026 approved level and drawing on circuit breaker special education reimbursement funds, steps that Assistant Superintendent Dr. Christopher Scully and Superintendent Dr. Julie Hackett called less than ideal; Hackett warned, "We can do this for a while. We cannot do this forever." Back-to-back double-digit health insurance increases — 11 percent last year and 13.5 percent projected for fiscal 2027 — were cited as the single largest driver of the crisis, with Koznoff projecting roughly 10 percent for fiscal 2028. The White Book summit is set for January 28 and the Select Board is scheduled to vote the high-level budget summary February 9.