Analysis: Town and Schools
Town Meeting — finances
The Town Meeting voted $1.03M for FY2026 and spent $1.03M of it by year end, and $3.24M in 1 trust and stabilization funds. 2 accounts in all, each with what it is for and what it has done. Every account, once.
lunenburgbudgetproject.org — written by the Lunenburg Budget Project, an independent tool for residents. Not affiliated with the Town of Lunenburg, the School Committee or the school district. The data this page is computed from: /data/finance.json
What this report counts
DOLLARS as the accounting system printed them for FY2026 (evidence), beside the annual reports’ schedules for earlier years (read and tied, or transcribed) — kept apart. An appropriation is a net line, not a cost (rule 11).
← the Town Meeting’s board page · every account, once
What Town Meeting votes for it
a general-fund line Town Meeting votes. 1 line.
| code | line | voted | revised | spent | encumbered | left | as of |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 996 | Transfer To Trust Funds | $232,500 | $1,027,937 | $1,027,937 | $0 | $0 | FY26 p12 |
The FY26 year-to-date budget reports (evidence). Period 12 is the year end, unaudited, summed from the line’s accounts; period 9 is 31 March. A line is net of whatever else pays for the thing — rule 11.
Stabilization funds
a stabilization fund. 1 line.
| fund | name | opening | in | out | held | held, by year |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 8124 | Stabilization | $3,147,179 | $97,299 | $0 | $3,244,478 |
Opening, in, out and held from the FY26 fund reports as of 31 March 2026 (evidence), read by the identity opening + in − out = held, which every row here satisfies unless flagged. A balance in parentheses is overdrawn.
Three grades of figure, never mixed
evidence — the accounting system’s own printouts: the FY26 budget reports (FY2026, period 12 (year end, unaudited) where an account-level report exists; period 9 (31 March 2026) otherwise), the special-revenue report as of 2026-03-31, the trust report as of 2026-03-31.
read — the annual reports’ special-revenue schedule, FY2011–FY2023, read off the page and tied to the report’s own printed totals on all four columns.
transcribed — OCR of the FY2023–FY2025 balance tables, columns read by position; checked against the FY26 opening balance where the years meet, and flagged where it does not chain. Rule 13: a reading is not the record.
Who owns what is our reading of the town’s books, and each row’s basis is in the registry: the department code the town itself puts on a fund, the department a line is filed under, or the fund’s name.
What this page cannot say
- What any fund balance is committed to. The reports are balances, not obligations.
- FY2024 and FY2025 activity for every fund: the annual reports print year-end balances only, and two of them do not chain to the FY26 opening balance (flagged in the tables).
- A trend for the appropriation lines. The annual reports print them, but the extract cannot yet say which printed column is which for most years (rule 13), so none is shown until it can.
- Trust fund income
- What any special revenue fund bought
- `glytdbud-expense` for the special revenue funds
- What the four `ADJ EXP` journal entries moved, and from where
- Whether a general fund athletics line is net of the revolving fund
- What the $87,293.86 is that the FY2023 annual report states twice and differently
- What the town held town-wide at 30 June 2024 and 30 June 2025
- Which TABLE in a document is ledger-backed, rather than which document is
- What any individual sport actually costs
- Whether a rise in the paraprofessional line is more posts or a grant unwinding
- Which budget line each dollar of grant and revolving money paid for
- Which Lunenburg budget lines the circuit breaker reimbursement offsets
- Whether a general fund rise beside a grant fall is the same cost, or a different cost in the same function
- How much of the SY2025 grant fall was ESSER, as against every other grant and revolving fund
- How much of a receiving district’s per-pupil spending Lunenburg actually pays
- What share of the schools’ grounds, custodial, heating and utility cost is athletics
- Which fund and account each field-rental receipt from Lunenburg Youth Soccer was posted to, and whether the $15,000 turf contribution is inside or beside them
- What Parks & Recreation’s programme fees and beach-pass sales became on the town’s books — how much of the $38,955.50 of programme fees and $8,828.00 of passes MyRec recorded for FY2025 reached fund 1500 (Park Revolving) or the general fund, and when
- What each of the town’s 500-odd accounting measures did before FY2026, line by line — the appropriation history of every department and the year-by-year activity of every fund
- Whether the schools’ stated field and grounds costs match the books — about $126,000 of grounds work in FY2024 and $38,100 of outsourced mowing and field repair, paid, the Superintendent says, from the same revolving fund the field rent goes into
- What put $62,231 into the School Facilities Use fund (1306) in FY2025 — the balance went from $3,010.67 at 30 June 2024 to $65,241.82 at 30 June 2025, more than the fund has taken in in any of the thirteen years the annual reports print
- Where do the other towns’ ski co-op reimbursements land when they are paid?
- What each town department was appropriated and spent in FY2024 and FY2025
- Who are the ten people the Public Library employs?
- Which fund pays the teacher salaries a district charges to grants and revolving accounts?
- What the Sewer Reserve Capacity and Arts Lottery funds held at 30 June 2023
- Does the FY2018 debt repayment schedule's printed grand total account for every issue's INTEREST?
- Does FY2024's debt service include the Mass Water Pool 9 balloon payment, or not?
- What did Lunenburg owe, by borrowing and by fiscal year, from FY2020 to FY2035?
- What the town’s own special revenue funds held at 30 June 2024, 2025 and 2026
- What the school grant funds held at 30 June 2024, 2025 and 2026
- Which school special revenue funds the period-13 special funds report leaves out
- What a fee-funded school programme costs that is not booked to its own fund
- Whether the school choice fund’s SCH. CHOICE BUS FEE account is where the student bus fees are booked
- What the athletic fee fund held at each 30 June, FY2021 to FY2026
- What the athletic fee fund’s high school purchase-of-service account paid for in FY2026
- Which of the town's two FY2023 statements of what the special revenue and enterprise funds held is right?
- Can we trust what Town Meeting appropriated, article by article enough to chart what the town voted to spend, year over year?
- Can we trust the capital projects and what they cost enough to chart what the town has built and what it paid?
- Can we trust the debt schedule enough to chart what the town owes and when it falls due?
- Can we trust gross wages, name by name enough to chart what the town pays its people in total?
- Can we trust the stabilization and trust fund balances enough to chart how much the town holds in reserve, and how that has moved?
What would close these
The FY2025 special-revenue and trust reports, and the year-to-date budget reports for FY2023–FY2025, from the Town Accountant — the same printouts the FY26 ones are. Every limit on this page is also a row in what we cannot answer, which is the single registry the records request reads from.