The money

Every account, once

506 accounting measures the town’s reports print — department lines, revenue estimates, funds, trusts, capital accounts — each listed once, under the board or department that owns it. 6 have no owner yet and are listed at the end.

lunenburgbudgetproject.org — written by the Lunenburg Budget Project, an independent tool for residents. Not affiliated with the Town of Lunenburg, the School Committee or the school district. The data this page is computed from: /data/finance.json

What this report counts

DOLLARS as the accounting system printed them for FY2026 (evidence), beside the annual reports’ schedules for earlier years (read and tied, or transcribed) — kept apart. An appropriation is a net line, not a cost (rule 11).

3
agency — money held for somebody else
64
appropriation — a general-fund line Town Meeting votes
14
capital — a capital project fund
3
debt — debt service
6
enterprise — an enterprise fund, or the betterments that feed one
192
revenue — a general-fund revenue estimate
187
special revenue — a revolving, gift, grant or receipts-reserved fund
9
stabilization — a stabilization fund
28
trust — a trust fund

Boards

School Committee · 67 accounts · $26.37M voted · $1.59M in its funds
Select Board · 43 accounts · $191k voted · $369k in its funds
Board of Health · 13 accounts · $126k voted · $171k in its funds
Conservation Commission · 13 accounts · $110k in its funds
Planning Board · 13 accounts · $0 voted · $55k in its funds
Trust Fund Commission · 12 accounts · $432 in its funds
Cemetery Commission · 10 accounts · $128k voted · $209 in its funds
Parks Commission · 9 accounts · $141k voted · $86k in its funds
Capital Planning Committee · 8 accounts · $2.29M voted
Council on Aging · 8 accounts · $267k voted · $66k in its funds
Library Board of Trustees · 7 accounts · $639k voted · $173k in its funds
Sewer Commission · 7 accounts · $387 in its funds
Board of Assessors · 6 accounts · $327k voted
Historical Commission · 4 accounts · $1k voted · $4k in its funds
Cultural Council · 2 accounts · $225 in its funds
Finance Committee · 2 accounts · $187k voted
Town Meeting · 2 accounts · $1.03M voted
Zoning Board of Appeals · 2 accounts · $15k in its funds
Architectural Preservation District Commission · 1 account · $500 voted

Departments

Treasurer/Collector · 134 accounts · $2.84M voted
Police Department · 33 accounts · $2.50M voted · $106k in its funds
Department of Public Works · 23 accounts · $2.89M voted · $-169k in its funds
Fire Department · 18 accounts · $1.74M voted · $9k in its funds
Town Clerk · 14 accounts · $96k voted · $252 in its funds
Town Manager · 14 accounts · $4.60M voted · $-6k in its funds
Building Inspection · 12 accounts · $10k voted · $400 in its funds
Facilities and Grounds · 6 accounts · $955k voted · $3k in its funds
Animal Control · 3 accounts · $46k voted
Emergency Management · 3 accounts · $7k voted · $778 in its funds
Town Accountant · 2 accounts · $509k voted
Information Technology · 2 accounts · $517k voted · $7k in its funds
Radio Watch (dispatch) · 1 account · $311k voted
Land Use · 1 account · $447k voted
Veterans' Services · 1 account · $91k voted

Assessed from outside

The Commonwealth (cherry sheet assessments) · 1 account · $936k voted
Montachusett Regional Planning Commission · 1 account · $4k voted
Montachusett Regional Vocational Technical School District · 1 account · $1.33M voted
Worcester Regional Retirement System · 1 account · $2.39M voted

Funds nobody’s page claims

6 measures no document we hold assigns to a board or department. They are listed rather than guessed at.

fundnameopeninginoutheldheld, by year
1522$769$0$0$769
8122$1,947$92$0$2,039
8123$33,960$1,609$0$35,569
8128$10,296$488$0$10,784
8129$249,060$6,544$0$255,604
8142$14,565$690$0$15,255

Opening, in, out and held from the FY26 fund reports as of 31 March 2026 (evidence), read by the identity opening + in − out = held, which every row here satisfies unless flagged. A balance in parentheses is overdrawn. Click a fund for its history.

Three grades of figure, never mixed

evidence — the accounting system’s own printouts: the FY26 budget reports (FY2026, period 12 (through June, unaudited) where an account-level report exists; period 9 (31 March 2026) otherwise), the special-revenue report as of 2026-03-31, the trust report as of 2026-03-31.

read — the annual reports’ special-revenue schedule, FY2011–FY2023, read off the page and tied to the report’s own printed totals on all four columns.

transcribed — OCR of the FY2023–FY2025 balance tables, columns read by position; checked against the FY26 opening balance where the years meet, and flagged where it does not chain. Rule 13: a reading is not the record.

Who owns what is our reading of the town’s books, and each row’s basis is in the registry: the department code the town itself puts on a fund, the department a line is filed under, or the fund’s name.

What changed

Version 15 — updated September 20, 2026