Every other page here is about closing a gap. This one is about not having one again — which is a different question with a single condition: the weighted average of everything the district buys has to grow no faster than the town’s revenue, 2.83% over 30 years, or 2.5% to never expire at all. That sounds like one locked door. There are 12 ways through it, 3 of which never reopen, and this page prices all of them the same way.
The reason there is no single lever
Why every one of them moves at least two lines
Not one package on the board below pulls one lever, and that is arithmetic rather than taste. Salaries and special education staffing are two thirds of the budget between them — but only one of those is bargained, and insurance is the highest-leverage line relative to its size. No one of them finishes the job, and the price of leaving either one out is on this page in the currency it is actually paid in.
Why every one of them moves at least two lines
Not one of the packages above pulls a single lever, and that is not a stylistic choice. The spread that has to be closed is 2.35 points — costs compound at 5.18% and the town’s revenue settles at 2.83%. Here is what each line can do about that on its own, which is the part that gets argued about at meetings and has never been written down.
Cannot be left out
Staff salaries
The line is 49.5% of the budget, so growing at 4% it consumes 1.98% of the 2.83% the town has to spend — the whole of it, before a single bus, teacher’s premium, out-of-district placement or box of paper is bought.
That is not a judgement about pay, it is a share of a budget. Hold every other line to the levy cap — insurance included, which nobody has ever proposed — and the blend is still 3.24%. Freeze every other line at zero growth outright and it comes to exactly 1.98%: dead level, nothing to spare, and the town still starts the period behind.
There is no arrangement of the other five lines that reaches the bar while salaries go on rising 4%. It can be paid around — with 46 new buildings a year, for ever — and it cannot be left out.
What holding salaries to the levy cap is worth on its own
$13.39M out of the next ten years — $200k of it next April, and by FY37 the gap is $6.60M instead of $9.27M, 29% smaller. Pinned to the cap with nothing else touched, salaries still
leave the curves diverging — which is the other half of the same finding.
Can be, at five times the price
Health insurance
The highest-leverage line in the budget relative to its size, and still only 14.9% of it. Taking five points off it — 9% to 4%, which is a serious plan-design change or the state GIC — takes 0.75 points off a blend that has to come down 2.35. So it cannot finish, and it is nobody’s sideshow.
Unlike salaries it can be skipped. Here is the price of skipping it, for the identical outcome — salaries at the levy cap, the four small lines held, holding for a generation:
Insurance left at 9%
79 buildings a year
$1.99M of new growth a year
Insurance at 4%
36 buildings a year
$903k of new growth a year
Same salaries, same small lines, same thirty years — 2.2× the building to avoid asking the question. Or, read as pay rather than as construction: with insurance at 9% the salary growth that balances is 1.20%; with insurance at 4% it is 2.71%. Five points of premium is worth 1.51 points of everybody’s pay, or about 2.3 positions a year of the 150 the line pays for.
And what it is worth even where it changes nothing else
$16.37M out of the next ten years — $201k of it next April, and by FY37 the gap is $5.71M instead of $9.27M, 38% smaller. It never shuts the gap for a single April on its own, and
it is still the most valuable uncontested move on this page: it touches no
classroom and reopens no contract.
And the two that ask nothing of anybody here
Development on its own. Leave every cost rate exactly where it is and a flat build rate can still hold the line for thirty years — at $3.91M of new growth a year, which is 155 new buildings a year, one every 2 days, without stopping, against the 234 commercial properties the town has accumulated since it was founded. It is a real answer and an implausible one, and it ends badly rather than gently: nothing touched the cost rate, so when the money stops covering the divergence the divergence is still running at full speed. Every package above uses development the other way round — as the last mile after the rates have done the work, which is why they need tens of buildings rather than hundreds.
The state. Chapter 70 could carry the whole increase without anybody in Lunenburg giving anything up, and the arithmetic of what that would take has a section of its own below. The short version: it is worth asking the delegation for and it is not worth planning around, and it gets worse before it gets better — all state aid is under a quarter of what the town collects, so a large rate on a small base takes decades to catch a smaller rate on the whole cost base.
Read every combination, priced↓The full version↑29 min
The menu
Combinations that hold, and for how long
Filed by how long they keep the gap shut rather than by how good they are, because five quiet years is a smaller ask than thirty and the town is entitled to know what the smaller ask costs. Within each band the packages differ in who is asked for what — which is the only part of this that is a decision rather than arithmetic.
The options
What actually holds, and for how long
Every package below keeps the gap shut for the number of years it is filed under — no cuts, no override cycle, nothing to come back to. They are grouped by how long they last rather than by how good they are, because five quiet years is a smaller ask than thirty and the town is entitled to know what the smaller ask costs. Within each band the packages differ in who is asked for what, which is the only part of this that is a decision rather than arithmetic.
Every package has two halves, and it needs both. The rates are what stops the gap growing: the weighted average of everything the district buys has to come under 2.83%, the rate the town’s revenue settles at — or under 2.5%, the levy cap itself, for a package that never expires.
Fixing a rate does not refund the year the town is already behind in, though, and FY28 starts $930,273 short. So each package also names what covers the early years, and there are four ways to do it: build, pass one override, raise user fees, or cut once. They are alternatives rather than a list — any one of them does it, and three of the four take nothing out of a classroom. The cut is flagged and listed last on every card, because a list of four that contains a cut reads as four cuts, and it is not.
Does any of this mean more cuts? No — not one of them.
Every package below can be covered without cutting anything. The cut is one of four interchangeable ways to pay for the first years, and the other three — building, an override, or user fees — take nothing out of a classroom. 0 of the 12 needs nothing at all, and 0 more need less than one position’s worth, which is attrition rather than a cut list.
And the override is not the large one people are picturing, provided the package shares the change. Lunenburg rejected a $2.40M override — $507 a year on the average home, 867 to 1753. Against that:
$79 a year
on the average home, for good
The one that never reopens — $378k townwide
$86 a year
on the average home, for good
Meet the state halfway — $414k townwide
$89 a year
on the average home, for good
The state carries it, and pay never moves — $427k townwide
What costs real money is sparing one side entirely. Leaving pay alone for a generation needs $1,419 a year on the average home — several times the override the town has already turned down. Possible without a cut is not the same as easy without a cut, and the difference between those two columns is entirely about how widely the change is shared.
Five years
No cuts through FY32
Share it
✓Holds 5 years
Everybody gives a little, and it costs a fraction of the alternatives
The rates
Salaries
4.0% →3.0%
Health insurance
9.0% →5.0%
Transport, special education, utilities, supplies
2.5%held to the levy cap
Costs grow 3.12% — still above the 2.83% the town’s revenue settles at, which is why this one has a horizon rather than no end date.
And any ONE of these four, once
Option 1Build44 buildings a year$1.10M of new growth a year against $400k today — nobody in a classroom pays for this one
Option 2Pass one override$705ktownwide — about $146 a year on the average home, permanently. Written for the schools alone it is $375k
Option 3Raise user fees$375k97% of everything the three fees could ever raise ($385k): athletics user fees from $390 toward $1,185, band, music & club fees from nothing toward $835, school bus fees from $180 toward $715
Option 4Cut once, and keep it cut⚠ costs positions$364kNot a lean year — a reduction adopted once that stays out of the budget for good: about 4 positions at $89,096 each, gone and staying gone. 24% of everything the district could cut outside a classroom ($1.50M: every sport, the band and clubs, most of technology, every administrator the law allows).
Any one of the four does it, and the first three cost nobody a job. The fourth is flagged and listed last for a reason — but note what makes it different from the cuts the town keeps making: with the rates fixed first, it is the last one. Today’s cuts buy twelve months because the rates underneath them never moved.
Who has to say yes
The union settles at 3%, the Town gets insurance to 5% through plan design or the GIC, and the district holds transport, special education, utilities and supplies to the levy cap
Look at what the other two cards in this band cost. Half a point off salary growth and four points off insurance, split between two parties, buys the same five years for roughly a third of the money.
Leave pay alone
✓Holds 5 years
No concession at the bargaining table at all
The rates
Salaries
4.0%unchanged
Health insurance
9.0% →5.0%
Transport, special education, utilities, supplies
2.5%held to the levy cap
Costs grow 3.62% — still above the 2.83% the town’s revenue settles at, which is why this one has a horizon rather than no end date.
And any ONE of these four, once
Option 1Build54 buildings a year$1.36M of new growth a year against $400k today — nobody in a classroom pays for this one
Option 2Pass one override$1.94Mtownwide — about $403 a year on the average home, permanently. Written for the schools alone it is $1.03M
Option 3Raise user feesnot possibleout of reach — every fee at the level that raises the most brings in $385k a year in total, and a fee is flat where a cut compounds
Option 4Cut once, and keep it cut⚠ costs positions$936kNot a lean year — a reduction adopted once that stays out of the budget for good: about 11 positions at $89,096 each, gone and staying gone. 63% of everything the district could cut outside a classroom ($1.50M: every sport, the band and clubs, most of technology, every administrator the law allows).
Any one of the four does it, and the first three cost nobody a job. The fourth is flagged and listed last for a reason — but note what makes it different from the cuts the town keeps making: with the rates fixed first, it is the last one. Today’s cuts buy twelve months because the rates underneath them never moved.
Who has to say yes
The Town alone, on insurance, plus the district on its own four lines. Nothing is asked of the union
Salaries go on rising 4% and somebody else covers it. This is the version that can be agreed without reopening a contract, and it is the most expensive five years on the board.
Leave insurance alone
✓Holds 5 years
Nothing asked of the Public Employee Committee
The rates
Salaries
4.0% →3.0%
Health insurance
9.0%unchanged
Transport, special education, utilities, supplies
2.5%held to the levy cap
Costs grow 3.72% — still above the 2.83% the town’s revenue settles at, which is why this one has a horizon rather than no end date.
And any ONE of these four, once
Option 1Build56 buildings a year$1.41M of new growth a year against $400k today — nobody in a classroom pays for this one
Option 2Pass one override$2.43Mtownwide — about $505 a year on the average home, permanently. Written for the schools alone it is $1.29M
Option 3Raise user feesnot possibleout of reach — every fee at the level that raises the most brings in $385k a year in total, and a fee is flat where a cut compounds
Option 4Cut once, and keep it cut⚠ costs positions$1.23MNot a lean year — a reduction adopted once that stays out of the budget for good: about 14 positions at $89,096 each, gone and staying gone. About the size of the cut the town made for FY27 — $1.17M and 9.2 positions — done once more and left in place.
Any one of the four does it, and the first three cost nobody a job. The fourth is flagged and listed last for a reason — but note what makes it different from the cuts the town keeps making: with the rates fixed first, it is the last one. Today’s cuts buy twelve months because the rates underneath them never moved.
Who has to say yes
The union settles at 3% and the district holds its own four lines to the cap. Insurance goes on rising 9% a year
The mirror image of the card above, and it costs almost exactly the same — which is the clearest evidence on this page that the two lines are interchangeable as arithmetic and only different as politics.
Ten years
No cuts through FY37
Share it
✓Holds 10 years
Salaries at the levy cap is what makes the cheque almost disappear
The rates
Salaries
4.0% →2.5%
Health insurance
9.0% →5.0%
Transport, special education, utilities, supplies
2.5%held to the levy cap
Costs grow 2.87% — still above the 2.83% the town’s revenue settles at, which is why this one has a horizon rather than no end date.
And any ONE of these four, once
Option 1Build39 buildings a year$979k of new growth a year against $400k today — nobody in a classroom pays for this one
Option 2Pass one override$579ktownwide — about $120 a year on the average home, permanently. Written for the schools alone it is $308k
Option 3Raise user fees$308k80% of everything the three fees could ever raise ($385k): athletics user fees from $390 toward $1,185, band, music & club fees from nothing toward $835, school bus fees from $180 toward $715
Option 4Cut once, and keep it cut⚠ costs positions$300kNot a lean year — a reduction adopted once that stays out of the budget for good: about 3 positions at $89,096 each, gone and staying gone. 20% of everything the district could cut outside a classroom ($1.50M: every sport, the band and clubs, most of technology, every administrator the law allows).
Any one of the four does it, and the first three cost nobody a job. The fourth is flagged and listed last for a reason — but note what makes it different from the cuts the town keeps making: with the rates fixed first, it is the last one. Today’s cuts buy twelve months because the rates underneath them never moved.
Who has to say yes
The union settles at the levy cap, the Town gets insurance to 5%, the district holds its own four lines
Half a point further on salaries than the five-year cards above, and the one-time money falls by more than nine tenths while the quiet doubles. This is the best-value package on the board.
Gentler on pay
✓Holds 10 years
Salaries at 3%, paid for once
The rates
Salaries
4.0% →3.0%
Health insurance
9.0% →5.0%
Transport, special education, utilities, supplies
2.5%held to the levy cap
Costs grow 3.12% — still above the 2.83% the town’s revenue settles at, which is why this one has a horizon rather than no end date.
And any ONE of these four, once
Option 1Build44 buildings a year$1.10M of new growth a year against $400k today — nobody in a classroom pays for this one
Option 2Pass one override$854ktownwide — about $177 a year on the average home, permanently. Written for the schools alone it is $454k
Option 3Raise user feesnot possibleout of reach — every fee at the level that raises the most brings in $385k a year in total, and a fee is flat where a cut compounds
Option 4Cut once, and keep it cut⚠ costs positions$422kNot a lean year — a reduction adopted once that stays out of the budget for good: about 5 positions at $89,096 each, gone and staying gone. 28% of everything the district could cut outside a classroom ($1.50M: every sport, the band and clubs, most of technology, every administrator the law allows).
Any one of the four does it, and the first three cost nobody a job. The fourth is flagged and listed last for a reason — but note what makes it different from the cuts the town keeps making: with the rates fixed first, it is the last one. Today’s cuts buy twelve months because the rates underneath them never moved.
Who has to say yes
The same three parties, with half a point more left on the table for staff and the difference found once instead
The same rates as the five-year card, held for twice as long by covering more of the early years up front. Nothing about the rates changed — only how much of the head start was bought.
Leave pay alone
✓Holds 10 years
Ten years without reopening the contract
The rates
Salaries
4.0%unchanged
Health insurance
9.0% →5.0%
Transport, special education, utilities, supplies
2.5%held to the levy cap
Costs grow 3.62% — still above the 2.83% the town’s revenue settles at, which is why this one has a horizon rather than no end date.
And any ONE of these four, once
Option 1Build54 buildings a year$1.36M of new growth a year against $400k today — nobody in a classroom pays for this one
Option 2Pass one override$3.59Mtownwide — about $747 a year on the average home, permanently. Written for the schools alone it is $1.91M
Option 3Raise user feesnot possibleout of reach — every fee at the level that raises the most brings in $385k a year in total, and a fee is flat where a cut compounds
Option 4Cut once, and keep it cut⚠ costs positions$1.61MNot a lean year — a reduction adopted once that stays out of the budget for good: about 18 positions at $89,096 each, gone and staying gone. That is more than every sport, club, band, most of technology and every administrator the law allows, combined ($1.50M). The balance has to come out of classrooms.
Any one of the four does it, and the first three cost nobody a job. The fourth is flagged and listed last for a reason — but note what makes it different from the cuts the town keeps making: with the rates fixed first, it is the last one. Today’s cuts buy twelve months because the rates underneath them never moved.
Who has to say yes
The Town on insurance and the district on its own lines. Nothing asked of the union
It can be done, and the price of not asking is on the card: several times the one-time money of the shared version, for the same ten years.
A generation
No cuts for thirty years
Share it, and build a little
✓Holds 30 years
A generation, with no cheque at all
The rates
Salaries
4.0% →3.0%
Health insurance
9.0% →5.0%
Transport, special education, utilities, supplies
2.5%held to the levy cap
Costs grow 3.12% — still above the 2.83% the town’s revenue settles at, which is why this one has a horizon rather than no end date.
And any ONE of these four, once
Option 1Build44 buildings a year$1.10M of new growth a year against $400k today — nobody in a classroom pays for this one
Option 2Pass one override$5.03Mtownwide — about $1,046 a year on the average home, permanently. Written for the schools alone it is $2.68M
Option 3Raise user feesnot possibleout of reach — every fee at the level that raises the most brings in $385k a year in total, and a fee is flat where a cut compounds
Option 4Cut once, and keep it cut⚠ costs positions$2.26MNot a lean year — a reduction adopted once that stays out of the budget for good: about 25 positions at $89,096 each, gone and staying gone. That is more than every sport, club, band, most of technology and every administrator the law allows, combined ($1.50M). The balance has to come out of classrooms.
Any one of the four does it, and the first three cost nobody a job. The fourth is flagged and listed last for a reason — but note what makes it different from the cuts the town keeps making: with the rates fixed first, it is the last one. Today’s cuts buy twelve months because the rates underneath them never moved.
Who has to say yes
The union at 3%, the Town at 5% on insurance, the district on its four lines, and the Planning Board on a build rate the town has managed before
The same rates as the five and ten-year cards. What buys the extra twenty years is not holding salaries lower — it is development, at a rate roughly twice what the town does now. Note what the one-time column says instead: a cheque would have to be several million.
Hold salaries harder, and almost nothing else
✓Holds 30 years
The cheapest generation on the board, if salaries can carry it
The rates
Salaries
4.0% →2.5%
Health insurance
9.0% →4.0%
Transport, special education, utilities, supplies
2.5%held to the levy cap
Costs grow 2.72% — still above the 2.83% the town’s revenue settles at, which is why this one has a horizon rather than no end date.
And any ONE of these four, once
Option 1Build36 buildings a year$903k of new growth a year against $400k today — nobody in a classroom pays for this one
Option 2Pass one override$503ktownwide — about $105 a year on the average home, permanently. Written for the schools alone it is $268k
Option 3Raise user fees$268k69% of everything the three fees could ever raise ($385k): athletics user fees from $390 toward $1,185, band, music & club fees from nothing toward $835, school bus fees from $180 toward $715
Option 4Cut once, and keep it cut⚠ costs positions$261kNot a lean year — a reduction adopted once that stays out of the budget for good: about 3 positions at $89,096 each, gone and staying gone. 17% of everything the district could cut outside a classroom ($1.50M: every sport, the band and clubs, most of technology, every administrator the law allows).
Any one of the four does it, and the first three cost nobody a job. The fourth is flagged and listed last for a reason — but note what makes it different from the cuts the town keeps making: with the rates fixed first, it is the last one. Today’s cuts buy twelve months because the rates underneath them never moved.
Who has to say yes
The union at the levy cap, the Town at 4% on insurance, the district on its four lines
Half a point of salary growth and one point of insurance below the card above, and thirty years arrives with a token cheque or a handful of buildings. This is the shape of the whole problem in one comparison.
Leave pay alone for a generation
✓Holds 30 years
Salaries never move, and development pays for it
The rates
Salaries
4.0%unchanged
Health insurance
9.0% →2.5%
Transport, special education, utilities, supplies
2.5%held to the levy cap
Costs grow 3.24% — still above the 2.83% the town’s revenue settles at, which is why this one has a horizon rather than no end date.
And any ONE of these four, once
Option 1Build46 buildings a year$1.17M of new growth a year against $400k today — nobody in a classroom pays for this one
Option 2Pass one override$6.83Mtownwide — about $1,419 a year on the average home, permanently. Written for the schools alone it is $3.63M
Option 3Raise user feesnot possibleout of reach — every fee at the level that raises the most brings in $385k a year in total, and a fee is flat where a cut compounds
Option 4Cut once, and keep it cut⚠ costs positions$2.29MNot a lean year — a reduction adopted once that stays out of the budget for good: about 26 positions at $89,096 each, gone and staying gone. That is more than every sport, club, band, most of technology and every administrator the law allows, combined ($1.50M). The balance has to come out of classrooms.
Any one of the four does it, and the first three cost nobody a job. The fourth is flagged and listed last for a reason — but note what makes it different from the cuts the town keeps making: with the rates fixed first, it is the last one. Today’s cuts buy twelve months because the rates underneath them never moved.
Who has to say yes
The Town holds insurance to the levy cap — the hardest version of that ask — the district holds its four lines, and the town builds
It is possible, and this is what it takes: every other line in the budget at the cap, insurance included, and a build rate the town has never come near. The salary line is the one no arrangement of the others can work around cheaply.
For ever
It never reopens, and nothing has to keep going right
Meet the state halfway
◇ Needs the State House✓Never reopens
A gentler local agreement, and Chapter 70 doing the other half
The rates
Salaries
4.0% →3.0%
Health insurance
9.0% →5.0%
Transport, special education, utilities, supplies
2.5%held to the levy cap
Chapter 70, at the State House
2.8% →5.9%not the town’s to decide
Costs grow 3.12% — well above the 2.83% the town’s own revenue settles at. It never reopens because state aid is compounding faster than the gap, which is a promise somebody outside this town has to go on keeping.
And any ONE of these four, once
Option 1Build32 buildings a year$814k of new growth a year against $400k today — nobody in a classroom pays for this one
Option 2Pass one override$414ktownwide — about $86 a year on the average home, permanently. Written for the schools alone it is $220k
Option 3Raise user fees$220k57% of everything the three fees could ever raise ($385k): athletics user fees from $390 toward $1,185, band, music & club fees from nothing toward $835, school bus fees from $180 toward $715
Option 4Cut once, and keep it cut⚠ costs positions$214kNot a lean year — a reduction adopted once that stays out of the budget for good: about 2 positions at $89,096 each, gone and staying gone. 14% of everything the district could cut outside a classroom ($1.50M: every sport, the band and clubs, most of technology, every administrator the law allows).
Any one of the four does it, and the first three cost nobody a job. The fourth is flagged and listed last for a reason — but note what makes it different from the cuts the town keeps making: with the rates fixed first, it is the last one. Today’s cuts buy twelve months because the rates underneath them never moved.
Who has to say yes
The union at 3%, the Town at 5% on insurance, the district on its four lines — and the Legislature, in every budget from now on. Four of those five are in this town and the fifth is not
The same local agreement as the five and ten-year cards above, which needed a cheque to reach even five years. With Chapter 70 growing at a rate a good year already looks like, it needs nothing and never reopens. This is the honest form of the ask to take to the delegation — not "fix it", but "make this agreement enough".
The state carries it, and pay never moves
◇ Needs the State House✓Never reopens
Nothing asked at the bargaining table, and a great deal asked at the State House
The rates
Salaries
4.0%unchanged
Health insurance
9.0% →5.0%
Transport, special education, utilities, supplies
2.5%held to the levy cap
Chapter 70, at the State House
2.8% →8.4%not the town’s to decide
Costs grow 3.62% — well above the 2.83% the town’s own revenue settles at. It never reopens because state aid is compounding faster than the gap, which is a promise somebody outside this town has to go on keeping.
And any ONE of these four, once
Option 1Build33 buildings a year$827k of new growth a year against $400k today — nobody in a classroom pays for this one
Option 2Pass one override$427ktownwide — about $89 a year on the average home, permanently. Written for the schools alone it is $227k
Option 3Raise user fees$227k59% of everything the three fees could ever raise ($385k): athletics user fees from $390 toward $1,185, band, music & club fees from nothing toward $835, school bus fees from $180 toward $715
Option 4Cut once, and keep it cut⚠ costs positions$218kNot a lean year — a reduction adopted once that stays out of the budget for good: about 2 positions at $89,096 each, gone and staying gone. 15% of everything the district could cut outside a classroom ($1.50M: every sport, the band and clubs, most of technology, every administrator the law allows).
Any one of the four does it, and the first three cost nobody a job. The fourth is flagged and listed last for a reason — but note what makes it different from the cuts the town keeps making: with the rates fixed first, it is the last one. Today’s cuts buy twelve months because the rates underneath them never moved.
Who has to say yes
The Town on insurance, the district on its four lines, and the Legislature for very much more than the card above asks
Every point of settlement left on the table has to be found somewhere, and here it is found at the State House. Chapter 70 has not grown at this rate in any recent year, which is the point of putting the two cards side by side: the local agreement is what makes the state ask reasonable.
The one that never reopens
✓Never reopens
Under the levy cap on the cost side, so nothing has to keep going right
The rates
Salaries
4.0% →2.0%
Health insurance
9.0% →4.0%
Transport, special education, utilities, supplies
2.5%held to the levy cap
Costs grow 2.48% — under the 2.5% levy cap, which is why nothing has to keep going right afterwards.
And any ONE of these four, once
Option 1Build31 buildings a year$778k of new growth a year against $400k today — nobody in a classroom pays for this one
Option 2Pass one override$378ktownwide — about $79 a year on the average home, permanently. Written for the schools alone it is $201k
Option 3Raise user fees$201k52% of everything the three fees could ever raise ($385k): athletics user fees from $390 toward $1,185, band, music & club fees from nothing toward $835, school bus fees from $180 toward $715
Option 4Cut once, and keep it cut⚠ costs positions$197kNot a lean year — a reduction adopted once that stays out of the budget for good: about 2 positions at $89,096 each, gone and staying gone. 13% of everything the district could cut outside a classroom ($1.50M: every sport, the band and clubs, most of technology, every administrator the law allows).
Any one of the four does it, and the first three cost nobody a job. The fourth is flagged and listed last for a reason — but note what makes it different from the cuts the town keeps making: with the rates fixed first, it is the last one. Today’s cuts buy twelve months because the rates underneath them never moved.
Who has to say yes
The union at 2%, the Town at 4% on insurance, the district on its four lines. Nobody else — no developer, no legislature, no decade of luck
No cheque, no override, no building. It is the hardest ask on the page and the only one that ends the conversation, and those two facts are the same fact: every cheaper package leans on something outside the town continuing to behave.
The one nobody here can vote for
And what the state does changes every number above
Chapter 70 cannot fix this on its own — aid ramps and the gap does not wait, so at any growth rate at all the town is still short next April. What it can do is make the local ask disappear. Here is the share it package from the 5-year band, priced at each rate state aid might grow at. All state aid is 24% of what the town collects and Chapter 70 is 79% of that, so both rates are shown: the delegation is asked for the first, and the projection moves the second.
What the Share it package needs at each rate of state aid growth
If Chapter 70 grows
All state aid
The package then needs
Or holds free for
2.8%what is assumed today
2.8%
$364k
not on its own
3.1%
3.0%
$348k
not on its own
4.3%
4.0%
$287k
not on its own
5.6%
5.0%
$226k
not on its own
6.9%
6.0%
$164k
not on its own
Read the fourth row. With Chapter 70 at 5.6% — not a rescue, a decent year — that package holds with no cut, no override, no fee and no extra building at all. The town still has to make the local agreement: the state is what removes the cheque, not what removes the decision. Which is the honest form of the ask to take to the delegation, and a great deal more persuasive than asking them to fix it.
The pattern, in case it is not obvious
Read down the first band. Sharing the change between salaries and insurance buys five years for a fraction of what either side costs on its own — and the two sparing packages cost almost exactly the same as each other, which is the clearest evidence on this page that those two lines are interchangeable as arithmetic and only different as politics. Then read down the bands: the same rates held for longer do not need salaries held any lower, they need more of the head start bought up front. And at the bottom, the one package that never reopens needs no cheque, no override and no building — only the two rates, moved further than anybody has yet proposed moving them.
The table the packages were drawn from
What insurance does decides what is left for salaries
Four of the six budget lines are fixed by contract, state law or the market, so salaries are the residual: whatever the other lines do, this is the line that has to absorb it. The honest question is not whether the town can hold salaries to any particular number, but what is left for them once insurance has taken its share — at every insurance rate worth asking the question at.
What health insurance does decides what is left for salaries
Salaries are the largest line, so whatever the other lines do, salaries are what absorbs it — though a share of what the account codes call salaries is special education staffing, which no settlement reaches. The last two columns assume the bargained increase stays at 4.0% and the line is held down by employing fewer people instead — which is one of the two ways to get there, and the one nobody says out loud.
Salary growth rate required for permanent balance at each health insurance growth rate, and the workforce reduction that implies
If health grows
Salaries must grow
Positions shed, year one
Workforce after 20 years
9.0%today
-0.76%
6.0
−54%
7.0%
-0.15%
6.0
−54%
6.0%
0.15%
5.8
−53%
5.0%
0.45%
5.3
−50%
4.0%
0.75%
4.8
−47%
2.5%
1.20%
4.1
−42%
So: yes. Leaving health insurance where it is and balancing on headcount alone costs about 54% of the workforce over twenty years — 6.0 positions in the first year and more every year after, since it is a percentage. Getting insurance to 4.0% brings that to 47%, and holding the four small lines to the cap as well brings it lower again. There is no version of this where the number is small.
Or nobody loses a job
A salary line and a salary rate are different things, and the table above only shows one way to reconcile them. The other is that the salary rate itself lands at that number: everyone keeps their job, and with insurance at 4.0% the scale rises 0.75% a year instead of 4.0%. Against inflation that is roughly flat pay, permanently, for roughly 150 people — and it is bargained, three years at a time, by people who can decline.
Any mix of the two works, and that is the point of the board above rather than a footnote to it: every option that reaches is a mixture of things nobody wants to do, and a mixture asks less of each person than any single one of them does on its own. What does not work is neither.
The default, if nobody decides anything, is the last column read backwards: insurance stays where it is, the bargained increase stays where it is, and the salary line is held down by employing 6.0 fewer people a year — 54% of the workforce over twenty years. Getting insurance to 4% lands the same arithmetic near 0.75% instead: roughly flat pay, permanently, for about 150 people and nobody losing a job. Any mix of the two works. What does not work is neither.
Being straight about it
What this page cannot tell you
Every package here is a point in a continuous trade-off, chosen because it is legible rather than because it is right.
These are twelve of infinitely many
Any mix of the same levers works if it gets the blended rate under the bar. The packages are curated so they can be compared, not because these particular numbers are the ones to adopt — the budget builder is where you make your own.
The rates are assumptions, not futures
9% health insurance and 4% salaries are this model’s projections. If insurance comes in at 5% much of this eases on its own, which is a reason to watch that number more closely than any cut list. FY28 starting $930,273 short is the one figure here that is already decided.
Nothing here says what should go
Whether a 3% settlement is fair, whether narrower networks are acceptable, whether the town wants $1.00M more of commercial development a year — none of those are questions a curve can answer, and this page does not pretend otherwise.
Same projection as the rest of the site, opened up at the growth rates. Every package is solved rather than proposed: the figures are what the arithmetic requires, not what anybody has recommended.