The money
The departments
What the Town Manager runs, and what each department is voted, holds and raises — FY2026 as the accounting system printed it. Boards that run a department (the schools, the library, the parks) are on their own pages; every account in one list is at /accounts.
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 Manager’s departments
| who | voted FY26 | in its own funds | in trusts | accounts |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Town Manager | $4,596,961 | ($5,572) | $21,368 | 14 |
| Department of Public Works | $2,887,470 | ($169,334) | $22,332 | 23 |
| Treasurer/Collector | $2,837,782 | — | $1,929,754 | 134 |
| Police Department | $2,502,441 | $106,234 | — | 33 |
| Fire Department | $1,742,387 | $9,297 | — | 18 |
| Facilities and Grounds | $954,769 | $3,000 | — | 6 |
| Information Technology | $517,288 | $7,379 | — | 2 |
| Town Accountant | $508,569 | — | — | 2 |
| Land Use | $446,669 | — | — | 1 |
| Radio Watch (dispatch) | $310,764 | — | — | 1 |
| Town Clerk | $95,923 | $252 | — | 14 |
| Veterans' Services | $90,699 | — | — | 1 |
| Animal Control | $46,125 | — | — | 3 |
| Building Inspection | $10,282 | $400 | — | 12 |
| Emergency Management | $7,000 | $778 | — | 3 |
Boards that run a department
Voted a line of their own; their pages are under the boards.
| who | voted FY26 | in its own funds | in trusts | accounts |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| School Committee | $26,368,342 | $1,592,572 | $16,200 | 67 |
| Capital Planning Committee | $2,293,320 | — | $2,653,764 | 8 |
| Town Meeting | $1,027,937 | — | $3,244,478 | 2 |
| Library Board of Trustees | $638,952 | $172,621 | $106,723 | 7 |
| Board of Assessors | $327,256 | — | — | 6 |
| Council on Aging | $267,307 | $66,061 | — | 8 |
| Select Board | $191,284 | $369,493 | $8,737 | 43 |
| Finance Committee | $186,800 | — | — | 2 |
| Parks Commission | $140,759 | $86,408 | $95 | 9 |
| Cemetery Commission | $127,757 | $209 | $359,243 | 10 |
| Board of Health | $126,361 | $171,035 | $288,152 | 13 |
| Historical Commission | $1,000 | $4,287 | — | 4 |
| Architectural Preservation District Commission | $500 | — | — | 1 |
Assessed from outside the town
Lines Town Meeting votes and cannot change: the regional school, the retirement system, the state’s cherry-sheet charges.
| who | voted FY26 | in its own funds | in trusts | accounts |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Worcester Regional Retirement System | $2,392,572 | — | — | 1 |
| The Commonwealth (cherry sheet assessments) | $935,843 | — | — | 1 |
| Montachusett Regional Planning Commission | $4,478 | — | — | 1 |
| Montachusett Regional Vocational Technical School District | $1,334,521 | — | — | 1 |
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.