A projection, not a district budget
In May 2026 voters rejected both budget overrides about two to one. The schools absorbed the balanced budget: four classroom teachers gone, class sizes pushed toward 30, middle school sports and Grade 5 band eliminated. This page is the evidence. The other two are where you decide what to do about it.
FY27 school budget
$26,922,288
Balanced budget ($26,572,288) plus $350,000 a Special Town Meeting has yet to vote on 3 September
Projected FY28 gap
$930,273
Cost of today's services minus revenue likely to be available
Cutting every sport saves
$217,908
A further $233,922 of athletics is already cut
Override vote, May 2026
33% yes
867 for, 1,753 against
The short version
The hole, every year
$672,238
Average annual shortfall FY28–FY30, after each year’s cuts compound
What business growth would have to deliver
$46.7M
of new commercial value every year — about 51 more average businesses a year, on top of the 234 the town has, or 16 typical developments
Cutting every sport, band and club
$376,207
All athletics still funded, all arts and music, all clubs — eliminated entirely. Covers 40% of next year’s gap, once, and then the column is empty
Health insurance, shifted 75/25 → 70/30
$199,923
in year one after the 25% owed back to employees ($266,564 headline) — and it costs a family on the broadest plan $2,198 a year
Athletic fee that would make sports self-funding
$915
a season, against the $345,458 it costs to field the teams that survived AND get them to away games. Against the $217,908 the budget actually funds — which pays for no transportation at all — it is $440. Restoring the full $451,830 program is out of reach at any fee
Activity fee to make band, music and clubs self-funding
$465
per student per activity, covering the $106,244 those programs cost. Reachable — but a steep charge for a school club
Lunenburg is not facing a one-year problem that can be solved by cutting sports. It is facing a structural gap of roughly $670,000 a year, every year, in a town whose school budget grew 1.08% while its neighbors grew three to six times faster.
Every sport still funded, every band, every club and every art supply, eliminated entirely, comes to $376,207; the FY27 budget already took most of athletics, and the same money cannot be cut twice. Next year’s gap is $930,273 and the five-year total about $3.3 million. So the whole "cut the frills" argument does not cover FY28, and then the column is empty forever while the gap returns every single year.
How this was worked out →Salaries, health insurance, transportation and out-of-district tuition are roughly nine of every ten dollars, and each is set by contract, by the insurance market, or by law. When Easthampton's override failed, 93% of its cuts had to come from personnel. There is no other place large enough.
How this was worked out →The district’s own arithmetic for running the same schools one year longer comes to 3.98%. Inside it, one line falls 46% — out-of-district tuition, what the town pays other schools to educate children it cannot serve here, down $591,151 in a single year. That is a one-time drop, not a slower rate of growth, and eleven budgets show this line has been as low as $489,918 and as high as $1,291,293 with no direction to it. Hold it where FY26 had it and the same budget rises 6.23%. Plan against 3.98% and you will be surprised every year.
How this was worked out →The short version, continued
Special education paras are on a contract giving 2.0% a year. Their budget line has grown 12.78% a year for 10 budgets — $634,513 to $1,872,411, up in 8 of 9 years. Special education teachers run the other way: a 3.5% agreement and a line growing 2.67%. A contract sets what one person is paid; it says nothing about how many people are employed, and on this line that is where the movement is. Special education is about 21% of what the schools spend and the second-largest driver of the gap after health insurance.
How this was worked out →In a year when health insurance rose 8-14% and Chapter 70 aid rose 1.5-2% for everyone. Groton-Dunstable, Ayer-Shirley, North Middlesex, Wachusett and Ashburnham-Westminster all faced the same squeeze. That gap between our bar and theirs is the cut list. One scope note, because it is load-bearing: the state’s per-pupil series measures IN-DISTRICT expenditure, which by construction excludes what a district pays other schools for out-of-district placements — the line that has swung 2.6 times over eleven budgets here. The comparison holds; it is narrower than it looks.
How this was worked out →Ashburnham-Westminster wrote "preserve athletics, arts and music" into its district goals, raised athletics 2.7% and marching band 4.8%, reinstated girls ice hockey on user fees — and cut two elementary teachers to pay for it. Lunenburg cut athletics first and defended classroom staffing. Same pressures, opposite answers.
How this was worked out →For 2026-27 Lunenburg charges $400 for a first child, $300 for a second and $225 for a third, with a $1,500 family cap. Those fees do not appear in the school budget at all: they go into a revolving account, and that account pays for officials, uniforms and video that the general fund budgets at ZERO. So the budget is already net of them. In FY26 the account collected $188,944 and spent $146,911, about a fifth of what athletics actually cost. Put the buses back — the adopted budget funds none, and a team that cannot reach an away game is not a team — and the cost is $345,458. Today’s fee covers 61%–62% of that, and $785–$855 a season would cover all of it. It is a range and not a number because the account collects more than the published fee schedule can explain, and nothing published says whether that is more players than we counted or surcharges we cannot see. The fuller programme is not further off, it is unreachable: restoring level service costs $451,830 and no fee raises that on either reading, because revenue peaks near $373,322 at about $1,185 and then falls as families drop out.
How this was worked out →Proposition 2½ caps what the town may collect in total, not what you pay. The Assessors' own five-year table proves it: the average home rose 52% in value while the tax rate fell 22%, so the average bill rose only 19%. Rising assessments do not fund schools. Only genuinely new construction does.
How this was worked out →Between FY22 and FY23 residential value rose 23.3% while commercial fell 0.25%, industrial fell 3.2% and personal property fell 1.0% — in absolute dollars. Meanwhile new growth, the only thing that raises the levy limit without an override, fell from $481,496 in FY18 to $234,383 in FY23, a 51% decline. The town budgets $400,000 of new growth for FY27; it has not hit that since FY22.
How this was worked out →The town has 363 active business certificates and registered about 60 new ones last year. But 64% of them are at addresses on residential streets, only 25% are in trades that need commercial premises, and just 39 addresses in town host more than one business. Lunenburg has plenty of entrepreneurs and almost no new commercial square footage — which is exactly why registrations hold up while the commercial tax base shrinks. A consultant working from a spare room pays residential tax.
How this was worked out →After Chapter 70 aid, one student costs the levy $10,894 a year. The school share of an average tax bill is $3,959. So it takes the school taxes of 2.75 average homes to educate one child — and a two-child house runs about $17,800 a year in the red. A business of the same value pays the same tax and sends nobody.
How this was worked out →That is what closing the FY28 gap through commercial growth alone requires, because $613,238 ÷ the $14.39 tax rate is fixed arithmetic. In buildings that is about 11 retail plazas, or 14 typical Lunenburg developments, or 6 light-industrial warehouses, or 47 restaurants — permitted, built and assessed inside twelve months. For scale, all of Lunenburg's commercial, industrial and personal property together is worth $154 million, so this is adding 28% to the entire commercial base in a single year.
How this was worked out →Lunenburg's existing businesses average $658,001 of assessed value, so $42.6 million is about 65 more of them — a 28% increase in twelve months, and 2.5 times the new growth the town actually recorded in FY23. And the gap returns annually: sustaining it takes roughly 61 new businesses a year, which over five years carries the town from 234 businesses to about 540. That is not an argument against commercial development. It is an argument against treating it as the whole answer.
How this was worked out →At $15M of new commercial value a year, growth overtakes a $613,000 override in year three and keeps compounding, with nobody's bill going up. But $15M a year means about 23 more average businesses every year — a 10% increase in the commercial base annually, sustained. And no building permitted in 2027 helps the FY28 budget.
How this was worked out →The September town meeting restores two reading specialists, a full-time assistant principal, 52 tutoring seats and a music position — with one-time state money. Keeping them in FY28 is a brand-new cost the district has to absorb. Ashburnham-Westminster is doing the same with $600,000 of reserves; Groton-Dunstable is deliberately weaning off it. It works once.
How this was worked out →Our own package — higher fees, a technology audit, an administration trim — finds about two thirds of FY28 without cutting a program. The remaining third is roughly two teaching positions. Anyone claiming a painless third option has not added up the line items.
How this was worked out →The town certified $3,354,370 this year, 6.55% of its operating budget, and says it aims for 5%-7%. So about 24% of it — $794,872 — could go to the schools every year without breaching that standard. The catch is the condition: this year was a record, driven by unspent appropriations at 2.49 times their own four-year average. An ordinary year certifies $2,026,212, or 3.96% — already below the floor, with nothing to redirect at all. Both arguments in town are right about different years: a record balance, and below the recommendation in seven of the last ten.
How this was worked out →The starting point
✓ 867 yes · ✕ 1,753 no
✓ 760 yes · ✕ 1,862 no
2,638 ballots cast of 9,565 registered voters — 28% turnout. Both questions failed in all four precincts.
The district states class sizes now run 27–30 students, and that the Primary School and Turkey Hill share a single Assistant Principal.
The enacted state budget gave Lunenburg $471,121 more than planned. A Special Town Meeting on 3 September 2026 will vote $350,000 of it to the schools: two reading specialists, the high school Assistant Principal back to full time, 52 Ignite tutoring seats and a 0.4 music teacher. This money is one-time. Keeping those five things in FY28 is itself a new cost the district has to absorb — which is why they appear as choices on the adjustments page.
Reality check
Everything people say to cut
$644,031
Every sport, every band, every club, every art supply in the district — all of it, gone. Once.
Bars below show each category as a share of that $644,031.
72% of the $644,031 total below
All 25 sports and their coaches · Athletic transportation · Athletic trainer · Middle school & freshman sports · Athletic director, insurance, dues, equipment
26% of the $644,031 total below
High school band & chorus · Art supplies, all four schools · Music teachers at the high school and Turkey Hill · Instruments, repairs and sheet music · Band transportation
2% of the $644,031 total below
All advised clubs at the high school
The hole — and it comes back every year
$660,910
Average gap per year, FY28–FY32. Five-year total: $3,304,552.
Bar length is this year’s gap relative to the largest year. 69% covered by what is left of the extras
Bar length is this year’s gap relative to the largest year. Nothing left to cut from the extras — this comes out of classrooms
Bar length is this year’s gap relative to the largest year. Nothing left to cut from the extras — this comes out of classrooms
Bar length is this year’s gap relative to the largest year. Nothing left to cut from the extras — this comes out of classrooms
Bar length is this year’s gap relative to the largest year. Nothing left to cut from the extras — this comes out of classrooms
Cutting every sport, every band and every club in Lunenburg covers 19% of the next five years — and you can only do it once.
$644,031 against $3.30M of accumulated shortfall. It roughly covers FY28 alone. From FY29 onward there is nothing left in that column, and every dollar has to come out of classrooms, support staff and special education instead. That is the whole argument on one line.
Set by collective bargaining agreements
Staffing set by each child’s plan, not by a vote Why this line drives the rate →
Rate set by the town’s insurance trust
Supplies, materials, contracts, equipment
General education routes; special education routes are counted below
Court- and IEP-mandated placements
Market rates
Salaries, health insurance, transportation and out-of-district tuition are roughly nine of every ten dollars — and each is set by contract, by the insurance market, or by law. Only the last band is genuinely discretionary.
Comparable districts learned the same thing. When Easthampton’s override failed, $2,500,000 of its $2,700,000 in cuts — 93% — had to come from personnel. There is no other place large enough.
Local comparison
Operating budget growth, FY26 to FY27, as each district published it. Health insurance rose 8–14% and Chapter 70 aid rose 1.5–2% across all of them.
Lunenburg’s schools grew 1.08% in a year when neighboring districts grew 2.9% to 6.5% — and when everyone’s fixed costs rose far faster than that. The gap between our bar and theirs is the reason the cut list exists.
Every district in this group covered its shortfall with personnel, reserves, deferrals or higher assessments. None of them found enough in supplies, athletics or arts to matter.
Ashburnham-Westminster wrote "preserve athletics, arts and music" into its district goals and cut two elementary teachers to honor it. Lunenburg cut athletics first and defended classroom staffing. Same pressures, opposite answers — which is why the ranking in this tool is yours to set.
Lunenburg already charges, and raised the athletic fee for 2026-27 to $400 for a first child ($300 second, $225 third, $1,500 family cap), plus $180 a year for the bus. That is an estimated $187,000 — 54% of what it costs to field the teams that survived and get them to away games. Ashburnham-Westminster collects $215,000 overall and funds a whole team from fees; Groton-Dunstable is reviewing four fee categories. Because Lunenburg already charges, the easy headroom is gone: only the increase above today's fee is new money.
Ashburnham-Westminster balanced with $600,000 from reserves. Groton-Dunstable is deliberately weaning off $400,000 of one-time revenue. Lunenburg is doing the same thing with $453,722 in September. It works once.
Health insurance rose 8–14% across every district here while Chapter 70 aid rose 1.5–2%. No district in this group solved that; they only chose who absorbs it.
Both override questions failed on 16 May 2026, 33% and 29% yes. The town adopted the balanced budget: 253 staff, down from 256.5 at level service.
Protected
Given up
Source: LPS FY27 budget documents; town election tally
Budget reductions in FY24, FY25 and FY26 produced personnel cuts across all job classifications. The FY27 proposal is deliberately below level service. The district says an operational override is needed "now and in the foreseeable future."
Protected
Given up
Source: GDRSD FY27 Budget Book, 28 Jan 2026
District goals explicitly state: "Maintain Class Size" and "Ensure that co-curricular, arts, music and athletic budgets are preserved." To do it they cut two elementary teachers and drew $600,000 from reserves.
Protected
Given up
Source: AWRSD Superintendent FY27 Preliminary Operating Budget, 5 Feb 2026
Level-service budget rose 5.5% while Chapter 70 aid rose 1.5%. Health insurance rose 14.4% — the steepest in this group.
Given up
Source: Ayer-Shirley RSD Proposed FY27 Budget, 17 Mar 2026
Projected a $64,000 deficit at 3% budget growth versus $1.5 million at 5%. Roughly 30% of students receive special education services. Townsend has not passed an override in 20 years.
Given up
Source: NMRSD FY27 Budget Summit notes, 27 Oct 2025
Closed its gap by charging member towns more: the discretionary assessment rose 9.21% while enrollment fell in four of five towns.
Given up
Source: WRSD FY27 Budget Book, School Committee approved 9 Mar 2026
The lever that is already half-pulled
Source: Superintendent's email to families, August 2026.
Athletics, per season
Bus transport, per year
Blended across the sibling discount, athletics now works out around $390 per participation — an estimated $199,742 a year, or 58% of the $345,458 it costs to field the teams that survived and get them to away games. Under the old schedule that was $239 and about 35%, so the increase is worth roughly $77,336 a year if participation holds. The district publishes neither the schedule nor the collections, so these totals are our estimate — the arithmetic is on the Show the math tab.
Athletic Program Costs by Sport
$275,948
all 25 teams, FY24 · transcribed
The 5/1/2024 funding deck
$185,356
all 25 teams, FY24 · transcribed
The district’s by-sport workbook
$349,145
all 25 teams, FY24 · derived from the extract
The three totals span $163,790 — the highest is 88% above the lowest. Per sport it is far wider: Boys' Lacrosse is stated at $613 in one document and $14,189 in another, a difference of 2216%. No team carries the same figure in all three.
What this does not show. Which figure is right, or that any of them is wrong. A programmatic cost, an all-in cost and a season’s booked expenses would all differ legitimately, and no document we hold says which each column is. Nothing published reconciles them. What would settle it. A reconciliation from the district of its own three statements, sport by sport.
| Team | Costs by Sport | 5/1/2024 deck | Workbook FY24 | Range | Gap |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Boys' Lacrosse | $10,496 | $613 | $14,189 | +2216% | |
| Outdoor Track | $15,222 | $1,146 | $22,840 | +1893% | |
| Girls' Lacrosse | $12,350 | $1,492 | $14,061 | +842% | |
| Baseball | $17,777 | $2,574 | $19,295 | +650% | |
| Unified Track | $1,593 | $353 | $2,583 | +632% | |
| Softball | $17,431 | $4,895 | $22,685 | +363% | |
| MS Girls' Basketball | $6,764 | $2,366 | $7,268 | +207% | |
| MS Cross Country | $6,135 | $2,429 | $6,805 | +180% | |
| MS Boys' Basketball | $6,373 | $3,299 | $7,788 | +136% | |
| Girls' Basketball | $9,881 | $14,959 | $21,296 | +116% | |
| MS Field Hockey | $7,180 | $3,408 | $7,230 | +112% | |
| Boys' Basketball | $13,518 | $20,718 | $28,027 | +107% | |
| Boys' Soccer | $18,950 | $9,337 | $14,638 | +103% | |
| Boys' Ice Hockey | $11,994 | $15,070 | $23,701 | +98% | |
| Girls' Ice Hockey | $1,100 | $1,100 | $2,117 | +93% | |
| Indoor Track | $32,456 | $17,533 | $29,601 | +85% | |
| Unified Basketball | $3,033 | $1,908 | $3,123 | +64% | |
| Cross Country | $10,586 | $6,819 | $11,001 | +61% | |
| Football | $19,805 | $25,774 | $30,114 | +52% | |
| Golf | $7,859 | $5,931 | $7,937 | +34% | |
| Girls' Soccer | $15,250 | $14,984 | $19,660 | +31% | |
| Field Hockey | $10,459 | $9,866 | $12,004 | +22% | |
| Cheer | $5,909 | $4,961 | $5,906 | +19% | |
| Alpine Skiing | $9,825 | $9,825 | $10,960 | +12% | |
| MS Track | $4,000 | $4,000 | $4,316 | +8% | |
| All 25 teams | $275,948 | $185,356 | $349,145 | +88% |
Athletic Program Costs by Sport. "Athletic Program Costs by Sport", published with the FY26 budget materials. FY24 programmatic cost per sport. statedtranscribed from the document; no machine-readable extract exists
The 5/1/2024 funding deck. "Cost of Running Each Sport", Athletic Program Funding Overview deck, 1 May 2024. statedtranscribed from the document; no machine-readable extract exists
The district’s by-sport workbook. `Total Expenses` per sport in the district’s own by-sport workbook. athletics-by-sport-fy24-fy26.xlsx, obtained from the Town by records request, 17 June 2026. Extracted to sources/data/athletics-by-sport.csv, which carries the spreadsheet cell beside every value. statedderived from our extract, cell by cell
At $390 a season, between 6 and 18 of 25 sports pay for themselves — the answer depends on which document you take the cost from.
| Sport | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Boys' Basketball | 21 | $13,518 – $28,027 | $644 – $1,335 | 29–61%Part-funded |
| Girls' Ice Hockey | 2 | $1,100 – $2,117 | $550 – $1,059 | 37–71%Part-funded |
| Football | 32 | $19,805 – $30,114 | $619 – $941 | 41–63%Part-funded |
| Alpine Skiing | 14 | $9,825 – $10,960 | $702 – $783 | 50–56%Part-funded |
| Baseball | 15 | $2,574 – $19,295 | $172 – $1,286 | 30–227%Depends on the source |
| Girls' Basketball | 23 | $9,881 – $21,296 | $430 – $926 | 42–91%Part-funded |
| Golf | 13 | $5,931 – $7,937 | $456 – $611 | 64–85%Part-funded |
| Girls' Soccer | 34 | $14,984 – $19,660 | $441 – $578 | 67–88%Part-funded |
| Boys' Ice Hockey | 40 | $11,994 – $23,701 | $300 – $593 | 66–130%Depends on the source |
| Cross Country | 22 | $6,819 – $11,001 | $310 – $500 | 78–126%Depends on the source |
| Boys' Soccer | 35 | $9,337 – $18,950 | $267 – $541 | 72–146%Depends on the source |
| Cheer | 14 | $4,961 – $5,909 | $354 – $422 | 92–110%Depends on the source |
| MS Boys' Basketballmiddle | 15 | $3,299 – $7,788 | $220 – $519 | 75–177%Depends on the source |
| Field Hockey | 30 | $9,866 – $12,004 | $329 – $400 | 97–119%Depends on the source |
| Indoor Track | 70 | $17,533 – $32,456 | $250 – $464 | 84–156%Depends on the source |
| Softball | 39 | $4,895 – $22,685 | $126 – $582 | 67–311%Depends on the source |
| MS Girls' Basketballmiddle | 14 | $2,366 – $7,268 | $169 – $519 | 75–231%Depends on the source |
| Girls' Lacrosse | 31 | $1,492 – $14,061 | $48 – $454 | 86–810%Depends on the source |
| MS Field Hockeymiddle | 25 | $3,408 – $7,230 | $136 – $289 | 135–286%Pays its way |
| Boys' Lacrosse | 35 | $613 – $14,189 | $18 – $405 | 96–2228%Depends on the source |
| Unified Basketball | 14 | $1,908 – $3,123 | $136 – $223 | 175–286%Pays its way |
| MS Trackmiddle | 25 | $4,000 – $4,316 | $160 – $173 | 226–244%Pays its way |
| MS Cross Countrymiddle | 30 | $2,429 – $6,805 | $81 – $227 | 172–482%Pays its way |
| Outdoor Track | 86 | $1,146 – $22,840 | $13 – $266 | 147–2927%Pays its way |
| Unified Track | 12 | $353 – $2,583 | $29 – $215 | 181–1326%Pays its way |
| All sports | 691 | $185,356 – $349,145 | $268 – $505 | 77–145%Depends on the source |
Covered by the fee compares the fee you set above against what each sport costs per athlete. “Direct cost” counts only that sport’s own spending; “With overhead” also spreads the athletic director, trainer, secretary, insurance, dues and district-wide transport across the sports in proportion to their direct cost, which is the fairer test of whether a sport truly pays for itself. Athletes are participations, not unique students — a three-sport athlete counts three times, which is also how a per-season fee would be charged. On the range across all three documents, the per-sport figures total $185,356 – $349,145; the full high school program is $451,830, the difference being the athletic director, trainer, secretary, insurance, dues and district-wide transportation. Add the middle school and freshman teams back and a whole athletics program is $466,245. None of these is what the town saves by cutting a team — see the panel above.
Of the $217,909 the adopted budget spends on athletics, $110,766 — 51% of it — is the athletic director, the trainer, the secretary, insurance and league dues, and it is paid whether the school fields twenty teams or one. Only $107,143 of coaching stipends and equipment moves when a team folds.
The cut board is built on that split. It spreads the $107,143 pool across the teams using the published per-sport figures as weights — relative size — and never as absolute savings. That is why one team is worth far less there than its cost in any of the three columns above, and why cost per surviving athlete rises as teams are cut.
The district divides shared costs itself, in the same workbook
Beside the per-sport totals sits a column headed Costs for all 3 Seasons. These are its 11 entries, exactly as the cells read — district-wide costs being split three ways and pushed into season totals, which is how they end up inside a per-sport figure.
What this does not show. Which shared costs would actually fall if a team went. A league assessment, a trainer’s hours and an insurance premium may each move with the number of teams, or not at all, and nothing here tests it. The split above is the district’s FY27 budget lines, not a study of what is avoidable.
It has been asked out loud. School Committee minutes of 26 February 2025 record, in the same item as the fee rise, that “Mr. Bigelow is asked to suggest a sport to cut.” Read the minutes. Sixteen months later, on 24 June 2026, the committee heard that questions about the cost of middle school athletics had received answers that were “inconsistent”, and that “the community still lacks a clear understanding of both the financial picture and the path forward.” Read the minutes. The three columns above are what a person answering that question has to work with.
The meeting archive searched for those quotes covers 2025 onward. Anything said about a sport’s cost in 2023 or 2024 is not in it yet.
Proposed FY19 MSHS Athletic Budget — Submitted to the Superintendent of Schools, amended proposed budget. It lists Athletic Transportation twice: once as an appropriation, once as the Chapter 658 revolving fund — the same fund the town books as 1301.
| FY | Appropriated | Revolving fund | Total | Fund share |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| FY14 | $17,000 | $30,085 | $47,085 | 64% |
| FY15 | $21,600 | $40,742 | $62,342 | 65% |
| FY16 | $23,000 | $33,308 | $56,308 | 59% |
| FY17 | $23,000 | $50,986 | $73,986 | 69% |
| FY18budgeted | $33,500 | $27,450 | $60,950 | 45% |
| FY19requested | $24,975 | $40,000 | $64,975 | 62% |
In every year it reports as actual, the revolving fund paid more of athletic transportation than the town did — between 59% and 69%. For these years the appropriated athletics lines were net of a large revolving-fund contribution, and the appropriation alone understates what athletics cost.
What it does not show. Whether the split continued after FY19. No document published since shows both sides, so the ratio cannot be seen for any later year — including every year this app projects from.
What would settle it. An athletics budget in this format for any year after FY19, or the revolving fund’s account detail history.
The district published this. It is the clearest account of how athletics is actually paid for that exists anywhere in the record, and it came off the schools’ own budget page. In FY14 and FY15 the document’s stated grand total differs by $1 from the sum of its own two columns. The other four years tie exactly.
These are three good questions for the Business Manager at a School Committee meeting. The answers would materially sharpen every fee figure in this tool.
The revenue side
$2489.23M
Total taxable value, FY26 — derived from the $35,819,996 levy at $14.39 per $1,000.
Lunenburg uses a single tax rate — a house and a warehouse of the same assessed value pay exactly the same. The Select Board considered a split rate for FY26 and declined it: residential would have fallen to $13.70 and commercial risen to $21.58, adding about $2,300 to the average commercial bill. Their stated reasoning was to build the commercial base first.
When your home value goes up, the town does not get more money.
That is why “we need more business” and “we need an override” are answers to the same question — and why one of them takes years to work.
This is the question behind every “we need more business” comment at Town Meeting. The Board of Assessors publishes the answer every year, and it is not encouraging.
New growth is the only thing that raises the levy limit without an override. The last five years average 11% more than the five before them; the best year on record is FY2024.
The FY27 budget assumes $400,000 of new growth. The town reached that in 4 of the last five certified years; FY2026 came in at $518,650. Every dollar it falls short is a dollar the schools do not get.
Change in assessed value by class, FY2025 to FY2026, the latest step the state has certified. A revaluation moves these as much as a building does.
Residential grew $64,539,526 in one year while the entire commercial, industrial and personal-property base shrank by $12,696,434. That is the concern, in the town’s own figures.
No — and that is the surprise. The Town Clerk’s business certificate records show a healthy number of businesses registering every year. The problem turns out to be a different one entirely.
Certificates filed with the Town Clerk. The COVID-era surge peaked at 114 in 2022 and has fallen 46.5% since — though still well above the 2018–19 baseline of about 33.
2026 is a partial year (gray). Records before 2018 are incomplete, because certificates run four years and older ones drop off the file.
363
active business certificates on file today
Lunenburg is not short of businesses. It is short of buildings. A consultant working from a spare room files the same certificate as a warehouse — and pays residential tax.
Construction trades, automotive and consulting dominate — work done from a van, a laptop or a home office. Food, drink and retail, the categories that put up a taxable building, are a small minority.
A business certificate is a d/b/a filing under M.G.L. c.110 §5, required of sole proprietors and partnerships. Corporations and LLCs register with the state instead, so they are not all counted here. These are registrations, not employment or floor space, and they are a different universe from the 234 establishments the Census counts. Source: Town Clerk records.
If you take one thing from this page, take this table.
The Assessors’ own five-year table. As values rose, the rate was cut to keep the levy under the Proposition 2½ cap.
| Year | Tax rate | Average home | Average bill |
|---|---|---|---|
| FY2019 | $18.68 | $308,900 | $5,770 |
| FY2020 | $18.12 | $332,400 | $6,023 |
| FY2021 | $17.74 | $351,400 | $6,234 |
| FY2022 | $17.19 | $374,400 | $6,436 |
| FY2023 | $14.62 | $470,164 | $6,874 |
| Five-year change | -22% | +52% | +19% |
Under a single tax rate, a home and a business of equal value pay identical taxes — but only one of them sends children to school.
It takes the school share of 2.75 average tax bills to educate one child.
-$17,829 per year
A house with 2 children costs the schools $17,829 a year more than it contributes. Residential growth makes the school budget harder, not easier. A commercial building of the same assessed value pays the same tax and sends nobody.
Local cost per pupil is the $26,572,288 school appropriation less $9,349,335 of Chapter 70 aid, over 1581 students. It is an average: a student needing special education costs far more, and the town also collects local receipts and other aid that this comparison leaves out.
Show the math
Figures rebuilt
19
every roll-up the app quotes
Budget lines named
106
each one traceable to the district's own spreadsheet
That do not reconcile
0
every total matches the lines beneath it
Every figure below is rebuilt from FY27 line-item budget, Lunenburg Public Schools, 23 March 2026 (sources/data/lps-budget-lines.csv) and checked against the number the rest of this app uses. Open one to see the individual budget lines and add them up yourself. Where a roll-up depends on a judgment call — which lines count as “administration”, which scenario column to read — the judgment is stated rather than buried.
Town Meeting passed only the Balanced budget, which funds $217,908 of athletics — and zero athletic transportation. A team that cannot get to an away game is not a team, so that figure cannot be the test of whether athletics pays for itself. Each rung below adds one real budget line or scenario delta on top of the one before it, so you can pick the basis you think is honest and see what it costs.
| Basis | Adds | Costs | Fees cover | Self-funds at |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| As adoptedFY27 Balanced | — | $217,908.50 | 98% | $405 |
| As adopted, able to travelour constructionFY27 Balanced + transportation | +$127,550Athletic transportation | $345,458.50 | 62% | $855 |
| …plus a full-time trainerour constructionFY27 Balanced + transport + trainer | +$34,258.50The other half of the athletic trainer | $379,717 | 56% | out of reach |
| Full high school programFY27 Level Service | +$72,113Full coaching stipends | $451,830 | 47% | out of reach |
| The full programFY27 Restoration / Core | +$14,415Freshman & middle school coaches | $466,245 | 46% | out of reach |
Reconciles. The lines above total $466,245; the app quotes $466,245. Exact match.
Source: FY27 line-item budget, rung by rung
| Scenario | Detail lines | Salary reserve | Rebuilt | Stated | Difference |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| FY26 final | $26,196,705.93 | $90,770 | $26,287,475.93 | $26,287,473.93 | $2 |
| FY27 Restoration | $28,446,324 | $74,491.60 | $28,520,815.60 | $28,520,815.60 | exact |
| FY27 Core | $28,097,797 | $74,492 | $28,172,289 | $28,172,288 | $1 |
| FY27 Level Service | $27,258,797 | $74,492 | $27,333,289 | $27,333,288 | $1 |
| FY27 Balanced (adopted) | $26,497,797.50 | $74,492 | $26,572,289.50 | $26,572,287.50 | $2 |
Rebuilt = every detail line in that column, plus the salary reserve. Stated = the spreadsheet's own "TOTAL ACTUALS & BUDGET" row. The two differ by up to $2 in a $28 million budget, which is rounding inside the district's own file, not a missing line.
Method
Built from public documents published by Lunenburg Public Schools and the Town of Lunenburg. Peer comparisons drawn from reporting on Easthampton, Bridgewater-Raynham, South Hadley, Groton-Dunstable, Winchester and Duxbury. This is an independent projection and is not affiliated with, endorsed by, or approved by the school district or the town. Level-service cost reaches $34,845,718 by FY32 on the district’s own growth rates.