# What Lunenburg spends for each pupil, and what that number hides

*Written by the Lunenburg Budget Project. Not an official town or district document.*
*Every figure here is recomputed from `sources/data/lunenburg.db` by
`scripts/verify_peer_spending.py`, which fails the build if one drifts.*

---

## What this establishes

**1. Lunenburg is in the bottom quarter of Massachusetts districts by total per-pupil
spending, and it has been in every one of the seventeen years the state publishes.** In
FY2025 the figure is **$18,027**. The statewide median is **$23,520**, and Lunenburg sits
**$5,493** below it. Of the 318 districts with a published figure, Lunenburg ranks
**310** — **8** districts spend less.

**2. Against five neighbouring districts it has never been higher than fifth of six.**
FY2025 puts it sixth, at $18,027 against $18,142 for Ashburnham-Westminster — a
difference of $115, which is 0.6%. Over the seventeen years its rank in that set is fifth
or sixth and nothing else. The word "last" is doing less work than it looks like it is
doing; the durable fact is the *quarter*, not the position.

**3. Most of the spread between these six districts is the denominator, not the money.**
From FY2012 to FY2025 every one of the six increased spending within a narrow band —
**43.8%** at the bottom (North Middlesex) to **59.0%** at the top (Groton-Dunstable).
Lunenburg's was **48.7%**, in the middle of that band. What separates them is pupils:
North Middlesex lost **23.5%** of its FTE pupils over the same span, Groton-Dunstable
14.0%, Harvard 18.7%, and Lunenburg **5.6%**. A per-pupil figure is a ratio and both
halves move. **Give FY2025's money to each district's FY2012 pupil count and Lunenburg is
$17,025, fifth of six, and North Middlesex — currently third — is last at $16,474.**

**4. The gap is not spread evenly across the budget. It is concentrated in six
categories.** Lunenburg's in-district spending is **$17,785** a pupil against **$19,888**
for the median district in the set, Ayer Shirley — a gap of **$2,103** a pupil, or
**$3,299,397** across 1,568.9 in-district FTE pupils. Decomposed exactly across DESE's
eleven function categories: Teachers **−$654**, Pupil Services **−$614**, Instructional
Leadership **−$415**, Operations and Maintenance **−$235**, Instructional Materials,
Equipment and Technology **−$205**, Professional Development **−$154** — with Other
Teaching Services running **+$158** in the other direction.

**5. Against the whole state the two smallest lines are the extreme ones.** Professional
development is **$48** a pupil against a statewide median of **$172** — **27.9%** of it,
and only **25** of 317 districts spend less. Instructional materials, equipment and
technology is **$226** against a median of **$626** — **36.1%**, with **13** districts
below. Lunenburg is in the bottom quarter of the state in **7** of the 10 categories DESE
publishes a per-pupil figure for. The exception is **Other Teaching Services**, at
**$2,010** against a statewide median of **$2,031** — essentially at the median, ranked
162 of 317. That is the paraprofessional, tutor, substitute and instructional-support
line, and it is the one place Lunenburg's spending is ordinary.

**6. Lunenburg pays near the top of this set for teachers and employs the fewest of them
per pupil.** Average teacher salary **$97,233**, second of six behind Harvard's $99,136.
Teachers per 100 in-district FTE pupils **6.70**, last of six, against **7.41** to
**8.55**. The two multiply to the per-pupil Teachers figure — but that is DESE's own
construction rather than a discovery, and the section below says so plainly.

**7. A tenth of what DESE counts as Lunenburg's school spending is not general-fund
money, and that is the smallest share in the set.** Of **$30,031,242** in FY2025,
**$3,044,898** — **10.1%** — came from grants and revolving funds. Harvard's share is
24.0%. This matters for reading everything above: none of these totals is the town's
appropriation.

**8. The two Chapter 70 standings that look like a contradiction are not one.** In FY2026
the state requires Lunenburg to fund **60.4%** of its foundation budget against a median
district's **74.1%**, and the town and state together put in **1.2004×** the minimum
against a median of **1.3119×**. Both are "less", from different starting points. The
requirement is low because the formula's own *target* for Lunenburg is **68.7%** and the
requirement sits **8.29** points below it — a **$2,278,929** shortfall still being phased
in. It does not say the state judges the town poor. **What cannot be resolved from any of
these documents is whether the smaller margin above the minimum is a choice or a
constraint**, and that is registered as a gap rather than answered.

---

## What this is not

**It is not the school appropriation, and it is not what a Lunenburg household pays.**
DESE's measure is all funds. It counts grants, revolving funds, school choice receipts and
gifts, none of which appear in the budget Town Meeting votes. It also counts town-paid
insurance and retirement attributed to the schools — **$3,459** a pupil for Lunenburg in
FY2025, which is a line the school department does not carry. The difference between
DESE's $30,031,242 and the town's school appropriation is two definitions, not hidden
money, and reconciling them is a separate piece of work that has not been done.

**It is not a scorecard.** Spending less than a neighbour is not a failure and spending
more is not a success. What this document reports is what the money is and is not; what
should follow from it is a judgement the reader makes.

---

## The organised data

### Where Lunenburg sits statewide, year by year

DESE publishes the distribution of total per-pupil spending across every district, with
quartiles. That is what the headline rests on, deliberately: the six-district set below is
this project's choice and no document records the criterion for it, so no claim on this
page is allowed to depend on it.

Lunenburg has been below the statewide first quartile in **17 of 17** years, FY2009 to
FY2025. Its rank moved from 279 of 328 in FY2009 to **310 of 318** in FY2025, with a
visible improvement in FY2023 (282 of 320) that did not hold.

### The six districts, FY2025

| District | Total per pupil | Total spending | Of which grants and revolving | Total FTE pupils |
|---|---:|---:|---:|---:|
| Harvard | $25,565 | $27,236,238 | 24.0% | 1,065.4 |
| Groton-Dunstable | $22,664 | $54,106,517 | 11.5% | 2,387.4 |
| North Middlesex | $21,528 | $65,728,795 | 10.5% | 3,053.2 |
| Ayer Shirley | $20,428 | $38,561,581 | 16.0% | 1,887.6 |
| Ashburnham-Westminster | $18,142 | $41,432,696 | 10.4% | 2,283.8 |
| **Lunenburg** | **$18,027** | **$30,031,242** | **10.1%** | **1,665.9** |

The set is six in every year, but not the *same* six throughout: Ayer and Shirley
regionalised into Ayer Shirley for **FY2012**, so FY2009–FY2011 hold Ayer instead. Every
cross-district comparison in this document therefore starts at FY2012.

### Money against pupils, FY2012 to FY2025

| District | Spending | FTE pupils | Per pupil | FY2025 money at FY2012 pupils |
|---|---:|---:|---:|---:|
| North Middlesex | +43.8% | −23.5% | +87.8% | $16,474 |
| Groton-Dunstable | +59.0% | −14.0% | +84.9% | $19,492 |
| Harvard | +48.6% | −18.7% | +82.8% | $20,775 |
| **Lunenburg** | **+48.7%** | **−5.6%** | **+57.5%** | **$17,025** |
| Ayer Shirley | +51.4% | −3.0% | +56.2% | $19,809 |
| Ashburnham-Westminster | +46.5% | −2.9% | +50.8% | $17,621 |

The identity is exact: (1 + spending growth) ÷ (1 + pupil growth) = (1 + per-pupil growth),
checked for every district by the verifier. The last column is the same arithmetic run
once more — FY2025's dollars over FY2012's pupils — and it is arithmetic, not a claim
about what would have happened had enrolment held.

### The gap, by category, FY2025

Against Ayer Shirley, the district whose in-district per-pupil figure is the median of the
five comparison districts. Against that one district rather than against a category-by-
category median, because a median of medians does not add up: the eleven per-category
medians sum to $20,093 while the median district's total is $19,888, a difference of $205.

| Category | Lunenburg | Ayer Shirley | Gap | Rank of 6 | Statewide rank |
|---|---:|---:|---:|:--:|---:|
| Teachers | $6,513 | $7,167 | −$654 | 5 | 293 of 317 |
| Pupil Services | $1,908 | $2,522 | −$614 | 6 | 263 of 317 |
| Instructional Leadership | $1,109 | $1,524 | −$415 | 4 | 250 of 317 |
| Operations and Maintenance | $1,253 | $1,488 | −$235 | 6 | 288 of 318 |
| Instructional Materials, Equipment and Technology | $226 | $431 | −$205 | 6 | 304 of 317 |
| Professional Development | $48 | $202 | −$154 | 6 | 292 of 317 |
| Insurance, Retirement Programs and Other | $3,459 | $3,462 | −$3 | 5 | 204 of 318 |
| Out-of-district Transportation | $0 | $0 | $0 | 1 | not published |
| Administration | $581 | $579 | +$2 | 2 | 261 of 318 |
| Guidance, Counseling and Testing | $677 | $660 | +$17 | 3 | 226 of 316 |
| Other Teaching Services | $2,010 | $1,852 | +$158 | 3 | 162 of 317 |

### Teachers: pay against numbers, FY2025

| District | Average teacher salary | Teacher FTE | Per 100 in-district pupils | Teachers per pupil |
|---|---:|---:|---:|---:|
| Harvard | $99,136 | 86.9 | 8.55 | $8,475 |
| Groton-Dunstable | $97,140 | 170.8 | 7.41 | $7,196 |
| Ayer Shirley | $86,091 | 143.1 | 8.36 | $7,167 |
| North Middlesex | $88,781 | 228.6 | 7.89 | $6,989 |
| **Lunenburg** | **$97,233** | **105.1** | **6.70** | **$6,513** |
| Ashburnham-Westminster | $84,724 | 166.4 | 7.50 | $6,318 |

**The multiplication is DESE's own construction and not a finding.** The Teachers
function's spending divided by teacher FTE equals DESE's published average teacher salary
to within **0.52%** in the worst of the six. So saying "salary times ratio equals
per-pupil cost" is close to restating a definition. What it is *for* is that it says which
half moves: on this measure Lunenburg's teacher spending is low because of how many
teachers there are, not because of what they are paid.

### Students, FY2025

| District | Headcount | Low-income | Students with disabilities | English learners |
|---|---:|---:|---:|---:|
| Ashburnham-Westminster | 2,255 | 23.4% | 17.8% | 2.4% |
| Ayer Shirley | 1,723 | 33.2% | 20.4% | 7.3% |
| Groton-Dunstable | 2,300 | 9.7% | 18.3% | 2.1% |
| Harvard | 1,023 | 10.8% | 15.7% | 2.2% |
| **Lunenburg** | **1,563** | **23.3%** | **15.8%** | **3.5%** |
| North Middlesex | 2,914 | 27.1% | 26.0% | 3.6% |

Low-income share runs from 9.7% to 33.2% across the six. That is a wider spread than the
spending, and it is the first reason no relation between spending and results can be read
off a table of six districts.

---

## The two Chapter 70 measures that look like a contradiction

DESE publishes two standings for Lunenburg against every district in the state, and in
FY2026 they appear to point in opposite directions.

- **Required local contribution as a share of the foundation budget: 0.6041.** The median
  district is at 0.7412. Lunenburg ranks 248 of 374, so 247 districts are required to fund
  a larger share of their own foundation budget.
- **Net school spending as a share of what is required: 1.2004.** The median district is
  at 1.3119. Lunenburg ranks 217 of 340, so 216 districts spend a larger multiple of their
  minimum.

Read carelessly that is *the state asks Lunenburg for less than most towns, and Lunenburg
still puts in less above the minimum than most towns.* Read carefully it is two different
denominators, and one of them is not what it looks like.

**The required share is a phase-in position, not a judgement that the town is poor.** The
formula's own **target** local share for Lunenburg in FY2026 is **68.7%** — DESE sets
Lunenburg's target aid share at **31.3%**, against a statewide target aid share of 41%,
which means the formula treats Lunenburg as comparatively *wealthy*. The requirement of
60.41% sits **8.29 percentage points below** that target, a shortfall of **$2,278,929**,
and FY2026 closes **$275,365** of it. So the low required share does not say the state
thinks Lunenburg cannot afford more. It says the formula has not finished asking.

**The two are still both "less", and that is as far as the data goes.** What cannot be
told apart from these documents is whether the smaller margin above the minimum is a town
choosing to spend less or a town unable to raise more — the levy limit, two failed
overrides, the district's proposed budget and Town Meeting's vote all resolve into the
same single number, and the number is the outcome of all of them at once. That limit is
registered in `money_gaps` rather than argued away here.

**Rule 1 applies and is observed.** The net school spending measure carries a *stage* in
DESE's own basis column — actual in 31 of the 33 published years, budgeted in FY2025 and
FY2026 — and the two are different quantities under one name. Nothing here differences
across it. The FY2026 Chapter 70 figures and the FY2025 spending figures are also never
subtracted from one another: one is a budgeted formula calculation, the other is what
districts reported after a year closed.

---

## What people in Lunenburg have already said about this

Rule 15a: for every category this report calls low, search what residents said about that
thing in the same year. The search covered **8,899** of the **12,015** meeting documents
this archive holds — **74%**. The rest are image scans awaiting OCR. An empty search
result would not have meant nobody said it.

> "According to Massachusetts State reports Lunenburg per pupil expenditure is listed 361
> out of 401 districts in Massachusetts. This means that we're in the top 20% for school
> performance while being in the bottom 10% for spending"
> — public comment, School Committee, 24 January 2024

The spending half of that claim holds on DESE's own distribution. The 401 in that sentence
and the 318 in this document are different sets of districts, and both put Lunenburg in the
bottom tenth. **The performance half cannot be checked here at all**: this archive holds
MCAS for six districts and no statewide distribution of it, so no state percentile can be
computed for any results measure. That is a registered gap.

> "Lunenburg has a long and well established history of spending little per pupil and
> still having an amazing school district"
> — public comment, School Committee, 24 January 2024

The measurable half of that is exactly right, and it is the strongest finding here:
seventeen consecutive years below the statewide first quartile.

> "Teachers have learned to spend school budgeted money at the start of the year otherwise
> they and their students are penalized because a frozen budget in November means an
> inability to purchase needed materials later in the school year. Teachers and parents
> donate supplies"
> — the president of the Lunenburg Education Association, School Committee, 7 February 2024

Said in the same period in which the instructional materials, equipment and technology
line is 36.1% of the statewide median, with 13 districts of 317 below it. **The two are
printed together because a reader with this concern will find the number anyway.** They
are not evidence that either caused the other, and nothing in this archive tests that.

> "The North Middlesex superintendent reached out to me about potentially sharing
> resources as we have done in the past. Professional development with north Middlesex,
> they were looking for other opportunities to share resources"
> — the Superintendent of Schools, School Committee, 16 October 2024

Said about the line this document finds the lowest in the set. **A district spending $48 a
pupil on professional development that is sharing it with a neighbour is a different fact
from one that is not, and neither the DESE figure nor this document could have told you
which.** Rule 8: the district is visibly doing the sensible thing here, and it is nowhere
in the numbers.

> "the remaining $17,000 will be dedicated to contracted professional development. This
> week our legislators have approved one-time earmarked funds, $36,000 is going toward
> touch view screens at the Primary School, $7,000 will fund IXL for our middle school
> students"
> — the Superintendent of Schools, School Committee, 4 February 2026

Rule 11 made concrete, in the district's own words: grant and earmark money buying
professional development and instructional technology, which are the two lines this
document finds furthest below the state. DESE counts it in the totals here and the town's
appropriation does not, and **neither source says how much of either line is grant-funded
in any given year.**

> "neighboring districts such as Lancaster, Ayer/Shirley, Groton, Pepperell, Townsend,
> Leominster, and Fitchburg have faced similar challenges while achieving stronger
> outcomes"
> — public comment, School Committee, 24 June 2026

The comparison run the other direction, after the override failed. Two of the districts
named are in the set here. The MCAS figures this archive holds are below, and nothing in
them tests any relation to spending.

---

## MCAS, FY2025

Printed because residents are arguing about it in both directions, and for no other
reason. **Nothing on this page establishes any relation between what a district spends and
how its students score, and nothing in this archive could.**

| District | ELA 3–8 | Math 3–8 | ELA grade 10 | Math grade 10 |
|---|---:|---:|---:|---:|
| Harvard | 70.8% | 64.6% | 86.7% | 80.0% |
| Groton-Dunstable | 59.0% | 57.9% | 75.4% | 73.7% |
| **Lunenburg** | **45.9%** | **46.2%** | **57.0%** | **50.9%** |
| Ayer Shirley | 40.6% | 38.7% | 57.0% | 37.8% |
| North Middlesex | 40.6% | 36.4% | 56.7% | 44.1% |
| Ashburnham-Westminster | 39.9% | 39.7% | 58.1% | 47.3% |

Per cent of students meeting or exceeding expectations. Three years are published on the
site; one year is shown here. The two districts above Lunenburg on every measure are the
two with the lowest low-income share in the set — 9.7% and 10.8%, against Lunenburg's
23.3%. That is a correlation across six points with no control for anything, offered as a
reason **not** to read the table as a spending result rather than as an alternative
explanation for one.

---

## What this changes for planning

Rule 8: a finding arrives as what it means for planning, never as what somebody got wrong.
Four things follow, and none of them is a recommendation about how much to spend.

**A per-pupil comparison is always at least a year behind the budget being voted.** These
are DESE's end-of-year figures, reported after a fiscal year closes. The latest here is
FY2025 and the Chapter 70 figures are FY2026. A board voting a budget today is looking at
a comparison of years that have already closed, and every district in it has since moved.
Quoting it as though it described the year being voted is the easiest mistake to make with
it.

**Enrolment moves this number as hard as money does, and it moves on its own.** 22.2% of
the rise in Lunenburg's own per-pupil figure since FY2009 is the denominator. A district
that loses pupils without cutting proportionally climbs this table without deciding
anything; a district that holds its enrolment falls down it while spending more every
year. A plan built on the ratio rather than on the two halves is planning against an
artefact.

**The lines furthest below the state are the ones grants are already covering.** 10.1% of
everything counted here is grant and revolving money, and the district's own reports
describe grant and earmark money buying professional development and instructional
technology — the two categories furthest below the statewide median. A plan that treats
the general-fund line as the whole of either category is planning against a fraction in
both directions: the service is larger than the line, and it is less secure than the line,
because a grant ends and an appropriation is voted again.

**Where the district is visibly doing the sensible thing, it is not in this data.** The
professional-development sharing arrangement with North Middlesex is in the minutes and
nowhere in the numbers.

---

## What this does not show

- **Any relation between spending and results.** Six districts, one year, no control for
  demography, and a low-income spread wider than the spending spread.
- **What the money buys.** A Teachers line is not a class size; an Instructional Materials
  line is not a textbook count; a Paraprofessional FTE is not a person or a caseload.
- **Whether the figure is a choice or a constraint.** See above.
- **That these are the right six districts.** The set is ours. DESE's own workbook covers
  all 421 Massachusetts districts and this archive extracts six because the whole file
  takes the published database past a hosting limit. Every headline above is stated
  against the statewide distribution for exactly that reason.
- **That any of this is the town's bill.** Rule 11. All funds, not the appropriation.

---

## A note on the instrument

DESE prints one column headed per-pupil and computes it over **two different
denominators**: the district total over **total** FTE pupils, and every other row — the
in-district rollup and all eleven categories — over **in-district** FTE pupils. Verified
here against DESE's own dollar totals on **6,153** rows across seven districts and
seventeen years, with **no** exceptions.

This archive's own derived table `dese_function_statewide` carries a `per_pupil_basis`
column reading *per pupil, in-district FTE* on every row, and on the district-total row
that is wrong. **The string is ours**, written by `scripts/extract_dese_finance.py`, not
DESE's. Nothing on this page or its web version quotes it; the basis is asserted from the
arithmetic on every build instead. It is recorded here rather than quietly corrected
because it is the exact shape of the defect this project keeps finding — something derived
written down, and then quoted as though it had been observed.

---

## What would settle the open questions

| Question | The document | Where |
|---|---|---|
| Whether these six are the right comparison | DESE's DART comparison group for Lunenburg, with its criteria | DESE, public |
| Whether Lunenburg's MCAS results are high or low for the state | DESE's district-level MCAS achievement file, all districts | DESE, public download |
| What the per-pupil figure buys | The district's inventory and purchasing records for the materials and technology line | The district, records request |
| Whether spending less is a choice or a constraint | Nothing published settles it. The nearest is the district's level-service request against the appropriation voted, year by year | The district, records request |

All four are rows in `sources/data/money-gaps.csv` and render at
[/what-we-cannot-answer](https://lunenburgbudgetproject.org/what-we-cannot-answer).

---

## Sources

| Document | Publisher | What it is |
|---|---|---|
| `district-expenditures-by-function.xlsx` | Massachusetts DESE | Every district's spending by function, all funds, with DESE's own per-pupil figure. Reported after the year closed — not a budget. |
| `district-comparison.xlsx` (RADAR) | Massachusetts DESE | Enrolment, demographics, staffing FTE, average teacher salary and MCAS for all 421 districts. |
| `dese-ch70-district-profile.xlsx` | Massachusetts DESE | Required local contribution, required net school spending, and what each district spends against it. The net school spending column carries a stage per year. |

Every one is mirrored at `/docs/state-dese/<filename>` with its sha256 in
`sources/data/archive-manifest.csv`, and the extracted rows are in the published database.

*Generated data: `/data/peer-spending.json`, written by `scripts/build_peer_spending.py`,
which refuses to write if any assertion in it stops holding.*