# The school money graph — every node, inputs and outputs

**Generated by `scripts/build_money_nodes.py`. Do not edit.**

A flat list, on purpose. A diagram makes an omission look like a complete picture, and we kept losing nodes — the athletics fund because the town calls it `CHAPTER 658`, nine grant funds because they spend without booking revenue, school retiree health because it is appropriated to another department. Read down it and say what is missing.

`basis` — **traced**: a named account or fund holds this exact figure. **partial**: real, but not the whole of it (nine months, or one side of a two-sided flow). **unknown**: it exists and cannot be sized from anything published. *A row with no number is the most important kind here, because it is the one a diagram would silently drop.*

All figures FY2026. Appropriations are as voted; fund figures are actual through period 9 (31 March). **The two are on different bases and must never be added.**


## INPUTS — money available to be spent on the schools

| node | $ | basis | where |
|---|---:|---|---|
| General fund appropriation, dept 300 | 26,247,474 | traced | `ledger_snapshot` 0100-300, as voted |
| General fund appropriation, dept 301 non-recurring | 40,000 | traced | `ledger_snapshot` 0100-301 |
| Fund 2200 — School Lunch Revolving | 572,231 | partial | `v_fund_year`, nine months, ACTUAL |
| Fund 2640 — Special Ed Circuit Breaker | 325,970 | partial | `v_fund_year`, nine months, ACTUAL |
| Fund 1312 — Extended Day Revolving Fund | 192,943 | partial | `v_fund_year`, nine months, ACTUAL |
| Fund 1301 — Chapter 658 Revolving Fund | 160,164 | partial | `v_fund_year`, nine months, ACTUAL |
| Fund 1305 — After School Activities Fund | 111,376 | partial | `v_fund_year`, nine months, ACTUAL |
| Fund 1308 — School Choice Revolving | 83,116 | partial | `v_fund_year`, nine months, ACTUAL |
| Fund 2672 — Fy26 Family & Community 237 | 48,558 | partial | `v_fund_year`, nine months, ACTUAL |
| Fund 1311 — School Gift Fund | 22,486 | partial | `v_fund_year`, nine months, ACTUAL |
| Fund 1306 — School Facilities Use Revolv | 18,670 | partial | `v_fund_year`, nine months, ACTUAL |
| Fund 2681 — Comp School Health Serv Grant | 10,775 | partial | `v_fund_year`, nine months, ACTUAL |
| Fund 1302 — Adult Education Revolving Fund | 4,000 | partial | `v_fund_year`, nine months, ACTUAL |
| Fund 1300 — Lost Books/Tech Rev Fund | 2,860 | partial | `v_fund_year`, nine months, ACTUAL |
| Grant funds spending with no FY26 revenue booked (9 funds) | 495,918 | partial | `v_fund_year`, spent side only |
| Teachers’ pensions, paid by the state | — | unknown | not appropriated by Lunenburg; not in our archive |

- **General fund appropriation, dept 300** — What Town Meeting voted. Funded from the pot, which no source can be traced through.
- **General fund appropriation, dept 301 non-recurring** — A separate Town Meeting article.
- **Fund 2200 — School Lunch Revolving** — Never enters the general fund. Actual, not budget.
- **Fund 2640 — Special Ed Circuit Breaker** — Never enters the general fund. Actual, not budget.
- **Fund 1312 — Extended Day Revolving Fund** — Never enters the general fund. Actual, not budget.
- **Fund 1301 — Chapter 658 Revolving Fund** — **This is the athletics revolving fund.** Its journal comments read `CHAPTER 658 ATHLET` and it refunds families by name. A filter on the word "athletic" misses it entirely.
- **Fund 1305 — After School Activities Fund** — Never enters the general fund. Actual, not budget.
- **Fund 1308 — School Choice Revolving** — Never enters the general fund. Actual, not budget.
- **Fund 2672 — Fy26 Family & Community 237** — Never enters the general fund. Actual, not budget.
- **Fund 1311 — School Gift Fund** — Never enters the general fund. Actual, not budget.
- **Fund 1306 — School Facilities Use Revolv** — Never enters the general fund. Actual, not budget.
- **Fund 2681 — Comp School Health Serv Grant** — Never enters the general fund. Actual, not budget.
- **Fund 1302 — Adult Education Revolving Fund** — Never enters the general fund. Actual, not budget.
- **Fund 1300 — Lost Books/Tech Rev Fund** — Never enters the general fund. Actual, not budget.
- **Grant funds spending with no FY26 revenue booked (9 funds)** — Federal and state grants — Title I/II/IV, IDEA (#240), Student Opportunity Act. The money was received in an earlier year, so a filter on revenue returns none of these. **The spending is real school spending and none of it is in the $26m.**
- **Teachers’ pensions, paid by the state** — Massachusetts pays teacher pensions through the state system. Real compensation for district staff that the town never votes on, never appropriates, and cannot see.

## OUTPUTS — money spent on the schools

| node | $ | basis | where |
|---|---:|---|---|
| 2305 — HS TEACHER, MS TEACHER, ES TEACHER | 7,929,717 | traced | 5 accounts |
| 5200 — Insurance Programs | 3,752,258 | traced | 2 accounts |
| 2310 — Tutoring Cont. Ser. | 2,187,067 | traced | 8 accounts |
| 3300 — Student Transportation | 1,531,234 | traced | 2 accounts |
| 2330 — PSSPEDPARA, MSSPEDPARA, HSSPEDPARA | 1,344,373 | traced | 9 accounts |
| 2210 — P.S. Principals Office | 1,122,440 | traced | 23 accounts |
| 9300 — Private Tuitions | 988,630 | traced | 1 account |
| 4110 — Cust. Supplies - System | 853,560 | traced | 12 accounts |
| All other functions inside dept 300 | 6,538,195 | traced | the remainder of the 258 accounts |
| School retiree health insurance — dept 914 | 1,521,536 | traced | `0100-19142-570018` |
| Monty Tech assessment — dept 310 | 1,334,521 | traced | `0100-13102-532000` |
| School resource stipend — dept 210 | 6,800 | traced | `0100-12101-519021` |
| Pension (WRRS) attributable to school staff | — | unknown | inside `0100-18202-560001`, total 2,392,572 |
| Spending from the schools’ own funds and grants | 1,736,376 | partial | `v_fund_year`, nine months, ACTUAL |

- **2305 — HS TEACHER, MS TEACHER, ES TEACHER** — The district’s budget book does not name this code, so the largest accounts in it are shown instead of a name taken from general knowledge.
- **2330 — PSSPEDPARA, MSSPEDPARA, HSSPEDPARA** — The district’s budget book does not name this code, so the largest accounts in it are shown instead of a name taken from general knowledge.
- **School retiree health insurance — dept 914** — Spending on former school employees, appropriated outside the schools.
- **Monty Tech assessment — dept 310** — A different district. Town education spending, not Lunenburg Public Schools.
- **School resource stipend — dept 210** — Name is an abbreviation; the expansion is inferred.
- **Pension (WRRS) attributable to school staff** — The assessment covers town and school employees together and no published document gives the split. Teachers are not in it — they are in the state system. WRRS publishes an annual actuarial valuation by member unit; that is the document.
- **Spending from the schools’ own funds and grants** — Includes the grant funds above. Actual — never add to a budget.

## Worked example — Transportation — a fee that is charged, and cannot be followed anywhere

The district budgets transportation the way it budgets anything fee-funded: take the full cost, subtract what the fees are expected to bring in, and ask the town to appropriate the difference. **This is documented in the district’s own workbook**, in the comments column beside general education transportation: *"Does this reflect a reduction of $50K to accound for the money planned to come from the busing fees?"* — the people writing the budget, asking each other.

So the appropriation is NET. The fees are supposed to pay the rest. To show that, you need three things: the fee schedule, the spending, and the fee revenue.

**We have the first two and the third is missing.**

| transportation account | voted | spent |
|---|---:|---:|
| `0100-S3991692-535025` REG TRANS | 965,500 | 976,500 |
| `0100-S3991692-535026` SPED TRANS | 565,734 | 620,025 |
| `0100-S1011031-511001` BUS MAN SA | 110,000 | 102,069 |
| `0100-S1011031-511002` BUS OFF SA | 106,500 | 105,335 |
| **total** | **1,747,734** | **1,803,929** |

Bus fees are charged. The schedule is verified against the Superintendent’s May 2025 email and the School Committee’s adoption of Bus Fee Policy 3601.01 on 21 May 2025: $180 for a family with one student, $270 for two or more, $50 reduced, free for qualifying families. Grades 7–12 all charged; K–6 charged under two miles.

**And the general-fund revenue account `STUDENTBUS` shows $0 budgeted and $0 received.** There is no transportation revolving fund in the town’s fund table either — the 13xx range holds athletics, lunch, extended day, adult education, facilities use, school choice, gifts, vending and greenthumb. No buses.

So a fee that is charged by published policy has **no observable destination in any ledger we hold**. That is not the same as saying the money is unaccounted for — it is saying we cannot see it, which is a statement about our documents and not about the town’s books.

**The meeting archive carries what the ledger does not.** Searching it for the contractor’s name — rule 15a, and TJ knew to look — produces the shape of the program the accounts will not show:

- *Transportation contract, School Committee 8 January 2025:* “Dr. Gilson supplied the bid with **Dee Bus**, it is a 3 year contract with tentative increases over the 3 years.” The vendor the $1.75M is paid to, and the term.
- *Bus fee vote:* “a motion to vote on bus fees and send to policy subcommittee for setting rates… The rates would be **$180 for 1 child, $270 for 2 kids**.” Policy 3601.01 adopted 21 May 2025.
- *Superintendent’s report, 4 June 2025:* “We have received **1,074 bus requests, and have 494 unpaid** at this time. We will send a list to Dee bus, so they can designate bus routes, **names will not be forwarded to Dee Bus unless or until the fee is paid**.”

**That last quote is the closest thing to a measurement of this program that exists anywhere.** It is a count of requests at one date, not of families and not of payments, so it does not yield a revenue figure — 1,074 requests could be far fewer families, and “unpaid at this time” in June says nothing about September. What it does establish is that the fee is administered, tracked, and enforced by withholding the route. This is real money moving through a program whose receipts we cannot locate in any ledger.

It also dates the fee. The policy was adopted **21 May 2025**, after the FY2026 budget was built — which is one ordinary explanation for `STUDENTBUS` being budgeted at zero, and explains nothing about it having received zero.

Note what this does to the intuition. The natural guess is that the fees sit in a fund and pay bus bills directly, on top of the appropriation. That may be exactly right. It is also possible they land in the general fund and simply have not been booked yet. **Nothing we hold distinguishes those, and they imply very different things about who is paying for buses.**


## What is SITTING in the funds — and the three patterns in it

“Spent” alone hides more than it shows. A fund that receives $325,970 and spends $4,005 is not a small program; it is a reserve accumulating. Every fund below carries what moved **and what is left**, at 31 March.

| fund | | in | spent | held 31 Mar | net |
|---|---|---:|---:|---:|---:|
| `2640` | Special Ed Circuit Breaker | 325,970 | 4,005 | 615,301 | +321,965 |
| `1308` | School Choice Revolving | 83,116 | 30,558 | 299,461 | +52,558 |
| `2200` | School Lunch Revolving | 572,231 | 739,586 | 287,771 | -167,355 |
| `1301` | Chapter 658 Revolving Fund | 160,164 | 100,467 | 169,945 | +59,697 |
| `1305` | After School Activities Fund | 111,376 | 95,196 | 148,578 | +16,181 |
| `1311` | School Gift Fund | 22,486 | 2,911 | 109,398 | +19,575 |
| `1306` | School Facilities Use Revolv | 18,670 | 12,354 | 71,559 | +6,317 |
| `2622` | Fy25 Family & Community | — | 2,477 | 70,800 | -2,477 |
| `1312` | Extended Day Revolving Fund | 192,943 | 233,350 | 54,161 | -40,406 |
| `2672` | Fy26 Family & Community 237 | 48,558 | 13,372 | 35,186 | +35,186 |
| `1300` | Lost Books/Tech Rev Fund | 2,860 | 661 | 16,665 | +2,199 |
| `1302` | Adult Education Revolving Fund | 4,000 | 2,880 | 12,744 | +1,120 |
| `2681` | Comp School Health Serv Grant | 10,775 | 5,120 | 5,655 | +5,655 |
| `2728` | Fy24 Title 11 Part A #140 | — | 3,217 | 5,108 | -3,217 |
| `2832` | Fy25 #274  0205202509302025 | — | 5,427 | 0 | -5,427 |
| `2800` | Fy25 140   080524093026 | — | 2,208 | — | -2,208 |
| `2690` | Fy26 #309 Title Iv Part A | — | 3,240 | -3,240 | -3,240 |
| `2758` | Fy23 240 | — | 1,666 | -8,167 | -1,666 |
| `2813` | Fy25 #240 | — | 229,398 | -88,503 | -229,398 |
| `2778` | Fy25 117 Soa Evidence Base | — | 68,647 | -91,220 | -68,647 |
| `2814` | Fy26 #240 | — | 179,637 | -179,637 | -179,637 |

**1,531,564 is sitting in the schools’ own funds at 31 March.**

**Pattern 1 — accumulating.** The circuit breaker took in $325,970, spent **$4,005**, and holds **$615,301** — nearly double the year’s receipts, so money has accumulated across years. *The reimbursement is arriving and largely not being spent out of this fund.* Why is not established: end-of-year timing, a carry-forward policy, or the costs being borne by the appropriation while the reserve builds all fit identically, and this project does not pick between explanations that fit equally.

**Pattern 2 — drawing down.** School lunch spends **$167,355 more than it receives** and holds $287,771. Extended day is the same shape at −$40,406. A fee-funded program spending its balance is solvent this year and has a smaller cushion next year, and neither the appropriation nor the “spent” figure shows it.

**Pattern 3 — negative balances.** Several grant funds are **below zero** — FY26 #240 at −$179,637, FY25 117 SOA at −$91,220, FY25 #240 at −$88,503. Spending ahead of reimbursement is the ordinary explanation for a reimbursement-basis grant, and it is an *inference*: what is established is that the money went out and the receipt has not been booked.

*One caution on the circuit breaker.* Fund 2640 shows $325,970 received while the general-fund line `SCHCOSTREI` shows $318,424 budgeted and **nothing received**. Two circuit breaker figures about $7,500 apart, in two places. Whether they are the same money is **not established**, and if they are, a total counting both double-counts about $318,000.


## Revenue is not spending, and the two do not balance

**A fund is a tank, not a pipe.** It can spend less than it receives and accumulate, or more than it receives and draw a balance down. So an INPUT and a USE of the same fund are not the same money, and any diagram or table that puts them side by side is inviting a conservation assumption that does not hold here.

| all the schools’ own funds, FY2026 to 31 March | |
|---|---:|
| money in | 1,553,151 |
| money out | 1,736,376 |
| **net** | **-183,225** |
| opening balance *(derived from the fund identity — not printed)* | 1,775,481 |
| held at 31 March | 1,592,256 |

**The funds collectively spent 183,225 more than they took in.** That money is real and came from balances built in earlier years. A model that balanced would be hiding it.

This is why every fund row here carries `in`, `spent` and `held` rather than one figure. Any single one of the three is misleading on its own: `spent` alone made the circuit breaker look like a small program rather than a reserve, and `in` alone would make school lunch look solvent rather than drawing down.


## How money leaves a fund — three routes, and how to tell which was used

“Held” only means something once you know what the ways OUT are. There are three, and they are distinguishable:

| route | where it shows | for the circuit breaker, FY26 |
|---|---|---|
| **Direct expenditure** | the fund’s own `expenditure` and `salaries` columns | `expenditure` 4,005, `salaries` —, `encumbered` — |
| **Transfer into the general fund** | the general-fund revenue account `OP TRAN SR` — operating transfer from special revenue | **38,454 for the WHOLE TOWN, every special revenue fund combined.** A tenth of what this one fund holds, so it cannot have moved any material amount this way |
| **Offsetting the appropriation** | the district’s published budget offsets | The district publishes offsets for Extended Day, Facilities and Athletic and **none for the circuit breaker**. If it is used that way, no published number says so |

**So for FY2026 so far, it essentially has not come out.** The fund identity recovers an opening balance the town’s report does not print:

```
opening balance      293,335   derived, not printed
+ revenue            325,970
- expenditure          4,005
= closing balance    615,301   ties exactly
```

It began the year holding money, took in more than it spent by a factor of eighty, and is sitting on the result. **The diagram showing “spent $4,005 · held $615,301” is therefore correct**, and the “spent” figure on its own would have been close to a lie.

*Two things this does NOT establish.* Whether it is normal: we hold one period of one year, and a fund that spends at year end looks exactly like this on 31 March — the period 13 report would settle it. And whether `SCHCOSTREI` is the same money: the general fund shows $318,424 budgeted and **nothing received** against this fund’s $325,970 received. Two circuit breaker figures of similar size, one received and one not.


## EDGES — which source pays which use, and whether we can show it

The important column is `basis`. **`restricted` means we cannot show it** — the connection is near-certain because the fund exists for one purpose, but no report we hold says what the fund actually paid for. It is a presumption, and it is listed as one.

| source | use | basis | why |
|---|---|---|---|
| Any general-fund revenue source | Department 300 | **impossible** | Money in fund 0100 is fungible and no record ties a source to a department. The town apportions by share when presenting a budget; that is a convention, not a flow. **No further data will fix this.** |
| Department 300 appropriation | Its 258 accounts, by function | **traced** | `glytdbud-expense-fy2026-p12-gf-all` holds every account. |
| Fund 1301 (athletics) | Athletics spending | **restricted** | The fund is athletics — established from its cash journal. But **no expense report exists for special revenue funds**, so what it actually paid for is not observed. The general-fund athletics line (function 3510) is a separate, traced thing. |
| Fund 2200 (school lunch) | Food service | **restricted** | Same gap. |
| Fund 2640 (circuit breaker) | Special education | **restricted** | Same gap — and see the assumption below about whether this is the same money as the general-fund `SCHCOSTREI` line. |
| Fund 1312 / 1305 / 1306 / 1302 / 1300 | Their own programs | **restricted** | Same gap. |
| Fund 1308 (school choice) | — | **unknown** | School choice money is not restricted the way a program revolving fund is. Where it is spent is not established here at all. |
| Grant funds 26xx–29xx | The purpose of each grant | **restricted** | Restricted by the grant award rather than by a town vote, and equally unobserved. |
| Pension assessment (dept 820) | School staff | **unknown** | The assessment covers town and school employees together. No published document gives the split. |
| Dept 914 `SCHRETHLTH` | School retirees | **traced** | The account name states it and it sits beside the town-retiree equivalent. |
| State teachers’ pension system | District teaching staff | **unknown** | Not appropriated by Lunenburg, not in our archive, and not sized anywhere here. |

**The traceability runs backwards from what anyone expects.** The general fund is $26.2M with an *unknown source* and a *fully traced use* — 258 named accounts. The restricted funds are $1.7M with a *fully known source* and an *untraced use*. Neither has both ends, and the big one is missing the end people ask about.


## ASSUMPTIONS in use, and what would settle each

Everything here is currently load-bearing somewhere. A row leaves this table when a document arrives — never because it started to feel obvious.


**A restricted fund’s spending goes to its own program**

- *Evidence:* It is what the fund exists for, and a revolving fund is bound by the vote that created it.
- *What rests on it:* Every restricted edge above rests on this.
- *Settled by:* An expense report for the special revenue funds.

**`SCHRESSTIP` is a school resource officer stipend**

- *Evidence:* Read from the abbreviation, in the police department.
- *What rests on it:* A $6,800 line. Immaterial, and still an inference.
- *Settled by:* The account’s full name from MUNIS, which truncates at ten characters.

**The general-fund `SCHCOSTREI` line and fund 2640 are not the same money**

- *Evidence:* Nothing. They are similar magnitudes and we have not established either way.
- *What rests on it:* **If they are the same money, a total that counts both double-counts $318,424.**
- *Settled by:* The town accountant, or a transfer record between the two.

**The district workbook total ties to the dept 300 appropriation**

- *Evidence:* They land 0.4% apart for FY2026.
- *What rests on it:* Used to argue the $26m is the town’s bill rather than a gross figure.
- *Settled by:* Whether the 0.4% is netting or simply that `settled` holds 252 lines where `proposed` holds 321.

**The pension assessment includes school non-teaching staff**

- *Evidence:* Standard Massachusetts practice: teachers in the state system, other municipal employees in the county system. **Our archive does not say this.**
- *What rests on it:* The reason the pension is treated as a school cost at all.
- *Settled by:* The WRRS annual actuarial valuation, which reports by member unit.

**MSBA reimbursement stopped because a bond reached term**

- *Evidence:* Nothing. It is a guess that fits.
- *What rests on it:* Explains $474,239 a year that arrived through FY2022 and is zero in FY2026.
- *Settled by:* The town’s debt schedule, or the MSBA’s own payment record.


## The documents that would close the gaps

| document | what it is | what it closes |
|---|---|---|
| `glytdbud-expense` for the special revenue funds | The identical report the town already runs for the general fund and for each of the four enterprise funds, pointed at funds 13xx/22xx/26xx–29xx instead. | Turns **every restricted edge** above from presumption into traced fact — athletics, lunch, circuit breaker, extended day, and every grant. |
| WRRS annual actuarial valuation, by member unit | Published by the retirement system. | Sizes the school share of the $2.39M pension assessment. |
| The Town Manager’s revenue apportionment worksheet | Seen once; we do not hold it. | Documents the convention by which general-fund revenue is presented as split across departments. It cannot make the edge traceable — nothing can — but it makes the convention citable. |
| DESE End of Year Financial Report | Published by the state. | Separates district spending by FUND, which is the one thing the town’s budget documents never show. |
| Where bus fee receipts are booked | A revenue account, a fund, or a statement that they are netted before booking. | The fee schedule is published and verified; `STUDENTBUS` shows zero. **A charged fee with no observable destination** is the clearest single gap in this model. |
| The period 13 ledger | The year-end close. | Reconciles FY2026 properly; period 12 is used for now. |

## CLASSIFICATION — reasoned per item, not matched on a substring

`how` says what the judgement rests on, because that is the part worth arguing with. **`outside`** means it depends on knowing what a program is from beyond this archive — the weakest kind here, and flagged every time.

### Funds

| fund | name | class | how | why |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| `0100` | GENERAL FUND | **town** | stated | The general fund. |
| `1300` | LOST BOOKS/TECH REV FUND | **school** | stated | Lost books and technology — charged to students. |
| `1301` | CHAPTER 658 REVOLVING FUND | **school** | evidence | Its cash journal says CHAPTER 658 ATHLET and it refunds families by name. |
| `1302` | ADULT EDUCATION REVOLVING FUND | **school** | outside | Adult education is run by the district in Massachusetts. Not stated here. |
| `1303` | SUMMER SCHOOL REVOLVING FUND | **school** | stated | Summer school. |
| `1305` | AFTER SCHOOL ACTIVITIES FUND | **school** | stated | After school activities. |
| `1306` | SCHOOL FACILITIES USE REVOLV | **school** | stated | Use of school facilities. |
| `1308` | SCHOOL CHOICE REVOLVING | **school** | stated | School choice. |
| `1309` | INSURANCE RECOVERIES SCHOOL | **school** | stated | Insurance recoveries, school. |
| `1310` | GREENTHUMB REVOLVING FUND | **unresolved** | unresolved | “Greenthumb” — a school garden program or a town one. Nothing here says. No FY26 activity. |
| `1311` | SCHOOL GIFT FUND | **school** | stated | School gifts. |
| `1312` | EXTENDED DAY REVOLVING FUND | **school** | stated | Extended day. |
| `1314` | VENDING REVOLVING | **unresolved** | unresolved | Vending machines — in a school or a town building. No FY26 activity. |
| `1315` | FAMILY NETWORK GIFT FUND | **unresolved** | unresolved | “Family Network” — plausibly the district’s family engagement work, plausibly the Council on Aging’s. No FY26 activity. |
| `1549` | TECHNOLOGY FOR SCHOOL CHILDREN | **school** | stated | Technology for school children. |
| `2200` | SCHOOL LUNCH REVOLVING | **school** | stated | School lunch. |
| `2582` | EECBG ENERGY EFFICIENCY GRANT | **town** | outside | EECBG is the federal Energy Efficiency and Conservation Block Grant, made to municipalities. |
| `2640` | SPECIAL ED CIRCUIT BREAKER | **school** | stated | Special education circuit breaker. |
| `2649` | DISPLACED STUDENTS-PUERTO RICO | **school** | stated | Displaced students. |
| `2650` | UNDER STORAGE TANK GRANT | **town** | outside | Underground storage tanks — a public works and fire matter, not a school one. |
| `2681` | COMP SCHOOL HEALTH SERV GRANT | **school** | stated | Comprehensive school health services. |
| `2667` | FY24  #718 ARTS/CULTURAL VITAL | **unresolved** | unresolved | Arts and cultural — the district or the Cultural Council. The #718 code is not paired with a program name anywhere here. |
| `2709` | FY12  REG DISSEMINATION GR#321 | **unresolved** | unresolved | “Regional dissemination” #321, FY12. Dormant and undefined here. |
| `2903` | BC/BS MINI GRANT | **unresolved** | unresolved | A Blue Cross mini grant — school wellness or town employee wellness. |
| `2911` | TECH PREP PRIVATE GRANT | **school** | outside | Tech Prep is a federal vocational-education program. |
| `2912` | TUFTS UNIVERSITY HEAT GRANT | **unresolved** | unresolved | A Tufts University grant; “HEAT” is not expanded anywhere here. |
| `2914` | HACH SCIENTIFIC FOUNDATION GR | **school** | outside | The Hach Scientific Foundation funds high-school chemistry teaching. |
| `2793` | SCHOOL WATER IMPROVEMENT GRANT | **school** | stated | School water improvement. |
| `2772` | FY21 SCHOOL REOPENING #102 | **school** | stated | School reopening. |
| `5000` | SEWER BETTERMENTS | **town** | stated | Sewer betterments. |
| `5100` | WATER BETTERMENT FUND | **town** | stated | Water betterments. |
| `6000` | SEWER ENTERPRISE FUND | **town** | stated | Sewer enterprise. |
| `6100` | WATER ENTERPRISE FUND | **town** | stated | Water enterprise. |
| `6200` | PEG ACCESS ENTERPRISE FUND | **town** | stated | PEG access enterprise. |
| `7900` | SOLID WASTE/RECYCLING ENTERPRI | **town** | stated | Solid waste enterprise. |

The remaining **33** funds are dated federal and state grant shells whose names pair a code with a program. They are classified by that code:

| code | program | how |
|---|---|---|
| `#305` | Title I | paired |
| `#140` | Title II Part A | paired |
| `#309` | Title IV Part A | paired |
| `#274` | Special education program improvement | paired |
| `#117` | Student Opportunity Act, evidence-based | paired |
| `#237` | Family and community engagement | paired |
| `#113 / #119` | ESSER — federal pandemic relief for schools | paired |
| `#102` | School reopening | paired |
| `#240` | NOT paired anywhere in our data. Three funds carry a bare 240 and no name. Read as IDEA special education from outside knowledge — **flagged, because these are the two largest grant spends at $229,398 and $179,637** | outside |

### Revenue accounts

Only the plausibly-school ones are listed. **The point of the list is the ones that turned out not to be.**

| account | FY26 | class | how | why |
|---|---:|---|---|---|
| `CH 70 AID` | 9,229,410 | **school** | stated | Chapter 70 is the state education aid formula. Lands UNRESTRICTED in the general fund — a school-caused receipt, not school money. |
| `SCHCOSTREI` | 318,424 | **school** | stated | School cost reimbursement — the circuit breaker. See the assumption about whether this duplicates fund 2640. |
| `SPED REIMB` | 50,000 | **school** | stated | **Missed in the first pass.** Special education reimbursement. |
| `CHARTER` | 26,136 | **school** | outside | **Missed in the first pass.** Charter school reimbursement — state aid to the town for resident pupils at charters. |
| `PS TUITION` | 10,000 | **school** | stated | Pre-school tuition. |
| `MSBA REIMB` | — | **school** | stated | School building authority. $474,239 a year through FY2022, zero now. |
| `SCHOOL TRA` | — | **school** | stated | School transportation. |
| `STUDENTBUS` | — | **school** | stated | Student bus fees — and see the worked example. Charged, and zero here. |
| `ERATEREIMB` | — | **school** | outside | E-Rate is the federal telecoms discount for schools and libraries. Could be either. |
| `MIN TEACHE` | — | **unresolved** | unresolved | Ten characters. Nothing settles it. |
| `PROF DEV` | — | **unresolved** | unresolved | Professional development — for whose staff is not stated. |
| `SD ADM FEE` | 35,000 | **unresolved** | unresolved | “SD” is School Department or Sewer District, and both exist in this ledger. |
| `BUS CERTIF` | 2,000 | **town** | neighbours | **Not buses.** BUSINESS certificates. It sits among marriage licences, certified vitals, street lists, genealogy, dog licences and raffle permits — the Town Clerk’s fee schedule. *An error of mine, caught by reading the column instead of matching a substring.* |
| `TRANS ENT` | 338,397 | **town** | neighbours | **Not transportation.** A TRANSFER. It sits with `OP TRAN AG`, `OP TRAN CP`, `OP TRAN SR`, `OP TRAN TR` — the operating transfers. Same error, same cause. |
| `TRANSOFFSE` | — | **town** | neighbours | Transfer, as above. |
| `TRANSRECRE` | — | **town** | neighbours | Transfer, as above. |
| `BUS RENTAL` | — | **unresolved** | unresolved | Bus rental, or business rental. Zero in FY26 either way. |

**Ten characters is why two of these were wrong.** `BUS` truncates both BUS and BUSINESS; `TRANS` truncates both TRANSPORTATION and TRANSFER. Neither can be read from the name — only from what the account sits among. This is `LEDGER-STRUCTURE.md` rule one, restated by breaking it.


## What is deliberately NOT a node

- **Chapter 70, and every other general-fund revenue line.** They are inputs to the TOWN, not to the schools. They land in fund 0100 and lose their identity; the appropriation is the only edge out of it that anyone can follow. Listing Chapter 70 as a school input would assert a connection no record supports.

- **The pension assessment and school retiree health as INPUTS.** They are money the town spends on school employees, not money the schools receive. They raise what the schools COST without raising what the schools GET, which is why they keep being mislaid on the wrong side.


## Is this all of it? No — and here is what is missing

This list holds every dollar that moves through the town’s ledger under a label that identifies it. **Six categories of real school money are not in it**, and five of the six are missing for the same reason: the town books them in a lump that has no school line inside it.

| what is missing | size of the lump it hides in | why it cannot be split |
|---|---:|---|
| **School building debt service** | 2,547,440 | Two accounts, `SER LOAN P` and `SER LOAN I`, for all town borrowing. No project breakdown. School buildings were borrowed for and this is where that is repaid |
| **School capital** | 1,285,000 | `TR CAP PRO` and `TR STAB FD`, single transfer lines with no project detail |
| ~~Facilities and IT support~~ | ~~1,202,917~~ | **Withdrawn.** Departments 193 and 155 are the TOWN’s facilities and IT. The school runs its own, inside dept 300 — custodial $2,349,578 across function 4110, utilities on 4120/4130, building maintenance on 4220/4230 and technology on 1450/2451/4400. Listing the town’s departments as hidden school cost was a guess, and a wrong one |
| **Student activity accounts** | not in the town’s books at all | Held by the school under its own statutory authority. They do not appear in any town ledger, so their size is not knowable from anything here |
| **Trust funds** | not usable | The annual-report extract for trust funds is `check failed` on ordinal columns and cannot be aggregated. Some are scholarships |
| **Turf field income** | `CELL TOWER` $80,000 budgeted, $33,272 received | There is a cell installation near the turf field and the town leases the ground for it: the Select Board consented to a **sublease under a Land Lease Agreement between Cellco Partnership (Verizon Wireless) and the Town, to New Cingular Wireless (AT&T)**. The revenue accounts that could hold it are `CELL TOWER` and `LAND LEASE` ($1,000). **Whether any of it is earmarked for the field is NOT established** — the meeting archive was searched for a link between the lease revenue and the field and none was found, and a general fund line is subject to the pot rule like any other. `RENTTURFFI` (rent, turf field) exists and is zero. *A minute records the Town Manager saying T-Mobile services cell towers on the Town Hall roof; that is either a second site or a different subject, and it is noted so the quote is not later mistaken for evidence about the field.* |
| **Bus fees** | not found | Charged by published policy, no observable destination. See the worked example |

**And the potential money — what could feed in and currently does not.**

- **MSBA school building reimbursement.** $474,239 a year in every checked year through FY2022, and **zero in FY2026**. Whether that is a bond reaching term is a guess.

- **The balances already held.** $615,301 in the circuit breaker and $299,461 in school choice are the schools’ money, sitting still. They are not new money, but they are money not currently doing anything.

- **Grants not applied for.** Unknowable from here by construction: a grant that was never sought leaves no trace in any ledger.


**So: is the model accurate?** It is accurate about what it contains, and it contains what the town’s ledger labels. It is **not** the full cost of educating children in Lunenburg, and the gap is at least six categories wide. Every figure here is a floor.


## Known holes in this list

- Fund figures are **nine months**; the year is twelve. Nothing here is a year.

- Grant funds show spending with **no revenue booked in FY26**, so the input side of those grants is not sized here at all — only what went out.

- The athletics figure from the town ledger and the figure in the district’s own athletics documents **do not agree**, and they are on different bases and periods. Neither is wrong; they answer different questions.

- Anything the town holds under a name that does not say school, and that is not in a fund range listed in the script, is invisible to this file. `CHAPTER 658` is the proof that this happens.