Extracurriculars: what cutting sports, music and clubs saves
Every sport still being paid for, the band and chorus, every club advisor and every art supply, eliminated entirely, comes to $376k. That is 40% of next year’s gap — not even one year — and then the column is empty for ever while the gap comes back every spring. It is the answer that sounds like nothing is lost, and it is less than a year.
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/model.json
What this report counts
A count from the district’s own programme catalogue: what is funded outside the classroom in the budget now in force, and what eliminating it would save against the appropriation. Dollars and FTE as budgeted; not what a programme is worth to a child, which no budget line carries.
$376k
saved by eliminating everything outside the classroom that is still funded — 2.9 FTE
not 1 yr
of the gap that covers; short by $554k in FY28
$234k
of athletics the adopted budget has already cut — it cannot be cut again
40%
of next year’s $930k gap
If you read nothing else
01$376k
Every extra still funded, gone, saves $376k — 40% of next year’s gap, once.
every sport still being paid for, and its coaches, $217,908; the high school band and chorus, $72,440; art supplies, all four schools, $30,685; putting the high school music teacher back to full time, $26,370; and more. The whole athletics programme costs $466k; the budget in force already cut $234k of it, so what is left to save is $218k.
02not 1 yr
It does not buy even one year: $554k short in FY28, with nothing left outside the classroom to cut.
A cut is permanent and so is its saving, but the saving grows at most with the programmes it removed (3%) and the gap grows 3.2% a year from a base twenty times larger. The line under the extras is classrooms — which is the next page.
032.9 FTE
It is 2.9 FTE of people — coaches, advisors, a music teacher — and 6 lines, every one of which has a room of parents.
The cut that sounds free is the one with the most people at the meeting. What each programme costs a family in fees, and what the town has already taken off the field, is on what sports cost; this page prices the whole shelf so nobody has to guess whether it reaches.
What this does not show
What a season is worth to a child, what leaves with the students who go elsewhere for it, and what a fee-funded programme actually costs the town net of its fees (rule 11 on this site: the athletics line is already net). The catalogue is dollars budgeted; it does not know who quits.
Read the whole shelf, line by line↓The full version↑1 min
What is still funded outside the classroom
line
budgeted
Every sport still being paid for, and its coaches
$217,908
The high school band and chorus
$72,440
Art supplies, all four schools
$30,685
Putting the high school music teacher back to full time
$26,370
Instruments, sheet music, repairs
$17,073
Every club and after-school advisor
$11,731
All of it
$376,207
What the cut covers, year by year
year
the gap
the saving
short by
FY28
$930,273
$376,207
$554,066
FY29
$1,530,474
$387,493
$1,142,981
FY30
$2,197,945
$399,118
$1,798,827
FY31
$2,938,165
$411,092
$2,527,073
FY32
$3,757,043
$423,424
$3,333,619
FY33
$4,660,955
$436,127
$4,224,828
Who pays
Students, first: every team, ensemble and club on the list. Then the 2.9 FTE who run them. Then, in a year, the same students again — because the gap returns and the shelf is empty.
What it does not do
It does not change the rate. Costs still grow 3.2% a year and the levy 2.5%; a cut is an amount, and an amount has to be found again. And it cannot be repeated: the $234k the FY27 budget took from athletics is the proof that this shelf was already reached for once.
What would settle it: the district’s programme budget for FY28 when it is published, which will say what is still on this shelf then; and the participation counts, which say who is on it.