The revenue answer
The first thing raised at every meeting, and the thing most often described wrongly. An override is not a one-off payment: it raises the town’s levy limit permanently, and the higher limit then grows 2.5% a year like the rest of it. So the real questions are how big, for how long, and written for whom — and all three have arithmetic answers.
Is it a solution, and for how long
It is not a solution; it is time. The levy limit rises by the amount voted, permanently, and then grows 2.5% a year while what the schools buy grows nearly 5% — so the override covers the level once and the rate runs on. In its sixth year the same vote is worth $1,414,260 and the gap has outrun it.
Because it compounds, a large enough override genuinely does cover years rather than a year. The price of each extra year is on the sizing table below; ten years is $1,543 a year on the average home, and the conversation still returns after that unless a cost rate changes.
A school-only question sends the schools every dollar. A general one sends them about 53¢ of each, so it costs the average homeowner nearly twice as much for the same result. The ask Lunenburg put up and lost was the townwide kind. And an override raises a ceiling, not a bill: in a year the schools need less, the town can levy under it.
What one override does
| Year | Cost of today’s services | Revenue without an override | plus the override | = revenue available | Gap, running total= a further override passed that year | Grew by |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| FY27 today | $26,964,554 | $26,572,288 | — | $26,572,288 | $392,266 | — |
| FY28 | $28,361,470 | $27,431,197 | +$1,250,000 | $28,681,197 | funded, $319,727 spare | -$711,993 |
| FY29 | $29,842,207 | $28,311,734 | +$1,281,250 | $29,592,984 | $249,224 | $568,951 |
| FY30 | $31,412,392 | $29,214,447 | +$1,313,281 | $30,527,728 | $884,664 | $635,440 |
| FY31 | $33,078,066 | $30,139,901 | +$1,346,113 | $31,486,014 | $1,592,052 | $707,388 |
| FY32 | $34,845,718 | $31,088,674 | +$1,379,766 | $32,468,440 | $2,377,277 | $785,225 |
| FY33 | $36,722,314 | $32,061,360 | +$1,414,260 | $33,475,620 | $3,246,695 | $869,418 |
| FY34 | $38,715,344 | $33,058,565 | +$1,449,617 | $34,508,182 | $4,207,163 | $960,468 |
| FY35 | $40,832,856 | $34,080,915 | +$1,485,857 | $35,566,772 | $5,266,084 | $1,058,921 |
| FY36 | $43,083,500 | $35,129,047 | +$1,523,004 | $36,652,051 | $6,431,449 | $1,165,365 |
| FY37 | $45,476,584 | $36,203,621 | +$1,561,079 | $37,764,700 | $7,711,885 | $1,280,436 |
An override passed in a given year has to match that year’s running total exactly, which is what makes the running total the figure an override is sized against. Passed earlier it can be smaller, because it compounds at 2.5% in the meantime: covering FY30’s $884,664 costs $842,036 if the vote happens in FY28 instead.
1 years funded, then it fails — and the reason is in the last column. The override adds $31,250 of growth in its second year, because 2.5% of $1.25M is $31,250. The gap grows $600,201 that same year. The override covers about 5% of the annual growth, so the other 95% accumulates until it swallows the override whole.
This is also why an override is sized against the running total rather than against the annual growth. It replaces a revenue line that never rose, so it has to cover everything missing from that line in the year you care about, not just that year’s increment. The increment is the right measure only for the other strategy, below: a new override every year, each topping up the ones already passed.
Why an override is not one vote
| Year | School-only ballot | On the average home | If it were townwide |
|---|---|---|---|
| FY28 | $930,273 | $193 | $1,749,196 · $364 |
| FY29 | $570,339 | $119 | $1,072,410 · $223 |
| FY30 | $618,672 | $129 | $1,163,291 · $242 |
| FY31 | $670,594 | $139 | $1,260,920 · $262 |
| FY32 | $726,388 | $151 | $1,365,830 · $284 |
| FY33 | $786,364 | $163 | $1,478,603 · $307 |
| Six years | +$894 a year |
These are smaller than the year-on-year growth in the gap shown earlier, and deliberately so: last year’s override is still there and has itself grown 2½%, so each row is only the new money needed on top of it.
Each row is a separate vote, and each one is permanent — the tax column accumulates. A school-only question gives the schools every dollar it raises. The last column is the same job done by a general override covering all departments: it has to be nearly twice the size, and costs the average homeowner nearly twice as much, to leave the schools in the same place. That is the shape of the ask Lunenburg put on the ballot and lost.
This is not an argument against an override. It is an argument against expecting one to be the last one. An override closes a level; it does not change a rate, which is why the row below it is nearly as large.
The other way to do it
An override is not a one-off payment. It raises the levy limit permanently and compounds at 2½% a year like the rest of it, so a large enough one really does cover years rather than a year. This is what each length costs.
| To cover | Through | The ballot questionvoted in FY28 | Worth by thenafter compounding at 2½% | That year’s gap | On the average home, every year | Extra collected next yearabove the $930,273 the schools are short in FY28 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 year | FY28 | $930,273 | $930,273 | $930,273 | $193 | — |
| 2 years | FY29 | $1,493,145 | $1,530,474 | $1,530,474 | $310 | $562,872 |
| 3 years | FY30 | $2,092,035 | $2,197,944 | $2,197,945 | $435 | $1,161,762 |
| 5 years | FY32 | $3,403,695 | $3,757,042 | $3,757,043 | $707 | $2,473,422 |
| 8 years | FY35 | $5,680,173 | $6,751,941 | $6,751,941 | $1180 | $4,749,900 |
| 10 years | FY37 | $7,425,124 | $9,272,962 | $9,272,963 | $1543 | $6,494,851 |
Why $3.40M covers a $3.76M gap. Because $3,403,695 is what the ballot says in FY28, not what it delivers in FY32. The levy limit it lifted compounds at 2½% like the rest of the limit, so by FY32 that same override is handing the schools $3,757,042 — which is FY32’s gap to the dollar. Read the last two columns of any row and they match; that is the sizing rule, not a coincidence.
Run the model at exactly $3,403,695 and FY32 lands with nothing to spare. Two thousand dollars less and it fails.
One $3.40M override, across its own five years
The column above is next year only: pick a row, and that is how much more than the $930,273 shortfall it would collect in FY28. This is the other direction — one override followed through its own five years. It collects most above the need in its first year and least in its last, because the gap grows into it.
FY28
$2.47M
over-collected
FY29
$1.96M
over-collected
FY30
$1.38M
over-collected
FY31
$727k
over-collected
FY32
exactly enough
nothing spare
The surplus is a prepayment, not a windfall. Take the two-year question. It has to reach $1,530,474 by FY29, and compounding carries it from $1,493,145 to there — a gain of $37,329. But the gap grows $600,201 over that same year. So compounding supplies 6% of what is needed and the other 94% has to be collected a year early, before anybody needs it. That is what the $562,872 is.
And this is where the long options die. To be exactly enough in its last year, an override has to be far too much in its first. The five-year question collects $2,473,422 more than the schools need next April, falling to nothing by FY32 as the gap catches up — $6,537,040 over-collected across the five years altogether. “Tax yourselves $2.47M more than the schools are short” is not a ballot question anybody writes, which is the practical reason these rows are not the plan they look like.
There is one way out of it, and it is the reason it matters that an override raises a ceiling rather than a bill. The town can pass the larger question and then levy under the limit in the early years — taking what the schools actually need and leaving the rest uncollected until the gap grows into it. Lunenburg has left capacity unlevied before, though never on this scale. It asks voters to approve a number far larger than the one they will be charged, and to trust that the difference stays uncollected.
Each extra year costs more than the last: the override compounds at 2½% and the gap compounds at nearly 5% from a base that is already bigger. The two rates never cross, so no override of any size holds forever — buying a decade costs $1,543 a year on the average home, and FY38 arrives anyway. That is the same rate problem the rest of this page is about, met from the revenue side.
$3.40M buys five years at $707 a year on the average home. Whether that is worth it is a judgment about what five years of stability is for — time to bend a cost curve, or time before the same conversation happens again.
What it does not do
An override compounds at 2.5%. What the schools buy compounds at nearly 5%. No override of any size holds for ever, because those two lines do not meet — buying a decade costs $1,543 a year on the average home and FY38 arrives anyway.
See the rate problem →Which is the case for one rather than against it. Five years of stability is five years in which a health insurance contract could be renegotiated and a teachers’ agreement settled at a different number — the two lines that are 82% of the budget. An override that buys time nobody uses buys nothing.
See what each option costs →Nothing here argues for or against one. Two of the findings above make overrides look considerably better than they are usually described, and one makes them look worse.
Every analysis this project has written, in one index, is at reports.