Town checkbook

Notes

What "the budget" means

$206.1M is every appropriation in every fund – including capital articles, the OPEB trust, the Larz Anderson trust, the Light Department pass-through, and 300+ small revolving and grant funds. $127.3M is the annual operating envelope (Town general fund $60.6M + School general fund $49.1M + Water $6.5M + Sewer $5.5M + Tax Articles $4.3M + Harbor $1.3M). The Light Department runs as a self-supporting enterprise outside the appropriation process. The Budget vs Actual chart above filters down to that $127.3M envelope.

Budget vs spent vs vendor payments

The budget portal also publishes an FY26 actual rollup of $140.4M through May 29, which includes payroll and inter-fund transfers. The $98.1M on this page is just vendor checks (the accounts-payable side). The gap between the two is mostly payroll.

Why some bars look over budget

The Light Department ($13.2M) is self-supporting and has no appropriation, so it shows up against a $0 budget. Snow Removal ($687K vs $105K) is intentionally under-budgeted and topped up at year-end. Neither is a runaway expense.

What we redacted

The town's source export tags specific employees by surname for medical claims under the 111F Injury Leave Fund (e.g., "BURT INJURY" paid to Spaulding Rehab) and lists student initials for out-of-district SpEd placements. We dropped the Description column entirely and pulled 560 rows ($413K) from the 111F and Workers Comp funds. The aggregate is still in the budget chart above.

Source files

checkbook_FY26_2026-06-02.csv · budget_actual_FY26.json · checkbook_performance.json · checkbook_redaction_disclosure.json