Open data on the town's and schools' finances. Spending, debt, meetings, and how to take part.
Eight short chapters: how the town is run, where money comes from, where it goes, how the gap keeps reappearing.
FY27 vendor checks and budget pacing, drill-down by department.
AI-generated summaries of every Select Board, School Committee, and Finance Committee meeting.
The full catalog: debt, taxes, peer towns, school staffing, voting history.
A working list of suggestions and questions for the town's finance staff and boards.
All four ballot questions passed; the $15M operating tier governs FY27. The full record of the campaign, the candidates, and the result.
The two parallel administrations, the 18 elected and appointed boards above them, and the levers residents actually have. Click any department to see FY27 staffing and salary lines.
Twenty-eight commitments the boards made on the way to the June 9 vote: dollar allocations, staffing restorations, and process promises, each with a status and a source. Updates after each quarterly review.
Abbot Public Library employs about two dozen people and is open 52 hours a week. The no-override budget would have cut it 43%; voters restored it in June. How its funding compares to four other towns.
The 2021 EBI condition report is the only district-wide baseline. What's been done since, what's still on the list, and what the override added.
Twenty-four years of audited education spending, plus the superintendent's proposed FY26 and FY27 budget broken out by category. Peer comparison at the bottom.
Group Insurance came in 19% under budget every year for eleven years running. Peer towns book 0–5%. The unspent money has a destination.
Town Counsel, the schools' own legal budget, and the Light Department's firm sit in three different funds. Pulled together: about $364,000 to five firms in FY26.
For about 25 years, roads ran almost entirely on state Chapter 90 aid, roughly $449,000 a year against the $3 million the town says it needs. Local dollars only started in 2022.
51 debt-exclusion ballot questions since 1988. Voters said yes 50 times. As of FY25, $9.1M paid down net of new issuance.
The pension is set to be fully funded by 2036. Retiree health is a $142M promise that is about 3% funded. Roughly 7 cents of every general-fund dollar goes to people who no longer work for the town.
All 40 town departments in one place: who leads each, its three-year budget and line items, and headcount back to 2008.