Lexonomics Blog

Lexington Town Government Structure

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Lexington’s Town government is split into four major groups of elected officials: Town Meeting, the Select Board, the Planning Board, and the School Committee. The Town holds annual elections in March to vote for running candidates who will each serve 3 year terms, though specific dates are decided by the Select Board each year.

Town Meeting, which includes members of the Select Board, generally votes on and approves major town policies, including the fiscal year budgets and zoning by-laws.

The Select Board is in charge of making Town policy and appointing a Town Manager (James Malloy has been Town Manager since 2018) who oversees the town’s departments. These include public safety (i.e. law enforcement, fire department), land-use/housing development, public works (water, sewage, roads, etc), human services & health, and culture & recreation.

The Planning Board oversees Lexington’s land-use and development efforts, which include zoning proposals (to be voted on by Town Meeting) and permits.

The School Committee focuses on the needs of Lexington Public Schools and appoints the Superintendent (Julie Hackett since 2018) who is in charge of budget planning and school programs.

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One response to “Lexington Town Government Structure”

  1. Olga Guttag Avatar
    Olga Guttag

    The School Committee has three responsibilities:

    1. Hire, supervise and annually evaluate the Superintendent.
    2. Approve policies for the Lexington Public Schools.
    3. Determine educational priorities so the administrators (led by the Superintendent) can produce a budget for the next academic year. This budget is adjusted at SC’s requests (as needed), and then voted on by the SC. If such a vote fails approving the administration’s proposed budget, the administration has to rework the budget to get get SC’s approval. The LPS annual operating budget is the responsibility of and must be approved by the SC.

    Once the LPS budget is approved by the SC, it is shared with the town leadership (SB and Town Manager) as well as the finance committees (Appropriation – AC, Capital Expenditures – CEC). Upon reconciliation of the municipal and school annual budgets in “summit meetings” the budget for the entire town is presented to the TM for their approval. The Town of Lexington’s annual operating budget is the responsibility of and must be approved by the TM.

    If you want to follow the LPS budget process (as all TM members should), it is important to attend/watch SC and summit meetings of “SB + SC + AC + CEC + Town Manager + Superintendent.” Since a new budget cycle start shortly after the spring TM approves the upcoming year’s budget, to remain up to date, pay attention to SC and SB meetings starting in April and share your input with the appropriate board(s). Making changes to the budget during TM is extremely difficult, so the time to be involved is when the budget is being developed (usually April – Dec).

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