The Town of Worcester board met July 28 to build the 2027 proposed budget, and almost nothing went by without a fight over numbers. Total revenue penciled in near $992,820. A reopening of the gravel pit at the north end of County 508 dangled as the cheap way to fix crumbling roads. And the Cranberry Lake Lane-Little Chicago road project kept dropping in price, from a $2 million scare to a bid haul closer to $1.5 million. We sat through the whole session, which started with the 2026 fire call collection mess and ended with a date for the next budget meeting.
Quick Answer: The Town of Worcester drafted a 2027 budget with revenue around $992,820, set aside $150,000 in capital reserve, and still showed roughly $415,000 in surplus. The board discussed reopening the gravel pit at the north end of County 508 with Eric Lynch, debated whether to keep a three-person transfer station staff, and learned the Cranberry Lake Lane-Little Chicago project came in about one-third under its original $2 million estimate.
Why did the meeting open with a fight over fire call bills?
Last updated: September 2026
The first topic was money owed to the town, and nobody liked the answer. Clerk Regina walked through the outstanding fire call bills for both years. For 2026, $7,500 was still unpaid, with three letters just mailed. The 2025 number sat at $7,220, and two of those accounts were on payment plans.
The stubborn ones belong to Price Electric. Across 2025 and 2026, the company owed $2,750 combined. Board members pointed out that fire department member Travis was going to talk to them about settling up. The town sent him the outstanding invoices “quite a while ago,” according to the discussion. There was also a $500 bill from January that couldn’t be collected because the woman only left a 715 phone number and never returned a call.
One member voiced the frustration plainly. “It’s not right to subsidize them,” they said of the unpaid electric company bills. The town lost roughly $22,000 on fire calls in one accident-tied accounting, and the general feeling was that several accounts were gone for good.
Where did the money end up going?
By the time the revenue side was done, the board had a total estimate of $992,820. That included about $130,000 in surplus income from public charges and land sale money. Someone suggested parking $100,000 of it in a capital reserve account. That would give the town about $150,000 set aside, on top of the $48,000 already planned for 2026.
What could that money buy? A new grader, or more paved road, or nothing at all. “If we have a substantial downpour and lose a lot of culverts, or a tornado comes through, we know we’re going to spend more than we do,” one member argued. Another noted the grader is the town’s oldest and most expensive piece of equipment, which made the reserve push feel urgent.
Can the County 508 gravel pit be reopened to fix the roads?
Talk turned to the town’s 19 miles of blacktop in “mediocre to poor condition.” Board members figured they could justify spending $200,000 to $250,000 next year on blacktopping, pulverizing, and adding gravel. But the real hope sat at the north end of County 508.
Eric Lynch and the board had been in discussions about reopening that gravel pit. If it reopened, the town could crush its own rock at a fraction of the cost. Lynch said stumpage runs about 50 cents a yard, and the town would save on hauling distance. The catch? Reopening the pit is “about a five-year job with the U.S. Forest Service,” and with staffing losses there, it could drag out longer.
There was also a contract wrinkle. The town’s deal with the U.S. Forest Service covers grading, snow plowing, and spot graveling but explicitly excludes regraveling. “As long as they say not to regravel, we’re not going to regravel,” was the board’s position. That rules out a lot of the roads in the National Forest.
What is the biggest road project doing to the budget?
The Cranberry Lake Lane-Little Chicago road project was the headline number. It was originally estimated at just over $2 million. Actual bids came in around $1.5 million. That left the blacktopping line looking “pretty nice at the end of the year,” as one member put it.
The financing, though, was borrowed. The board members expected to sign papers in August for a straight line of credit up to $1.5 million for the project. With about $200,000 to $300,000 covered by cash, net borrowings could hit $1.2 million for a couple of months. At roughly 6% interest for two months, the projected interest cost was about $10,000. They budgeted for that as a worst case.
Reimbursement is supposed to flow in before the end of the year. The project’s completion date was set for October 15, with the final engineer bill triggering the final reimbursement. If it arrives in time, the line of credit gets paid off and only the interest shows up as a cost.
What exactly is wrong with the ambulance service finances?
The ambulance service discussion got raw. The town pays about $60,000 a year in per capita charges, and currently there’s a $10,000 loan outstanding that the service owes back. The service went to an outside billing company that charges 8% to handle Medicare, Medicaid, and insurance claims. Board members called that a bargain because one misplaced comma gets a bill rejected.
A couple of weeks before the meeting, the service sent $338,000 in bills covering unbilled calls from 2025 and into 2026. The very first payments, totaling $11,000, had come in. But payroll was still a scramble. “They’re falling behind,” one member said, estimating $40,000 a month in expenses against $11,000 in recent collections.
The old problems ran deep. The previous service director hid the fact that the service was cut off from Medicare for a year. Its corporate annual report wasn’t filed, and the service was “terminated for a while” before that got fixed. VA and Medicare billing were shut off at points. A $20,000 forensic audit was budgeted, then cancelled when they found “lack of doing the work rather than fraud.”
On the payout list, Worcester sits last. “Flambeau needs it the most, and Wooster actually needs it the least,” so the five or six towns owed $10,000 each would get paid back in order. Two co-service directors now share the job, and a regular audit was reinstated after being cancelled more than 10 years ago.
Should the transfer station keep three people on busy days?
The transfer station loses money, and the board had to decide if the service is worth it. Solid waste income for 2027 was estimated at $41,000 against roughly $59,000 in expenses. That puts the town about $18,000 to $21,000 in the hole. Part of the fix: the $2-per-bag rate, unchanged for three years, is too cheap.
Members split on staffing. Busy days run three workers, slow days two. One member wanted to keep the high service level because “you get some elderly women out there who can’t lift their bags.” Another argued the majority of customers can handle their own garbage and would just choose between waiting and doing it themselves.
They agreed to keep three people on busy days and put a rate discussion on the next agenda. A compactor setup like Fifield and Pike Lake use came up as a possible efficiency win for the waste hauler, though no one knew if the town’s volume justified it. The low $5 car-tire rate stays, because the town figures it beats cleaning tires out of the ditches.
What about the declining room tax?
Worcester is an outlier on room tax. The City of Phillips and other collectors had their best year yet, but Worcester’s number keeps dropping. The rentals are there on Soberg and Musky, one member said, but collection is the problem. Short-term rentals need a conditional use permit through zoning, which gives the town a mailing list.
The plan is a gentle reminder letter to property owners. Enforcement, though, is nearly impossible. “You can go on Airbnb and see that they’re renting, but how do I know how much income they’re bringing in?” one member asked. The IRS isn’t going to audit someone underpaying by a couple thousand dollars. So the letter approach, at least, gets the conversation started.
Should the town take over its own tax collection?
The clerk treasurer position had a full plate, including a possible big change in tax collection. Right now the county handles Worcester’s tax roll, at a fee that keeps climbing. This year’s number came in around $4,417, up $1,500 in a single year.
Taking it back would mean more than 1,000 tax bills and over 1,000 checks a year, plus envelopes to open and bank runs to make. The clerk has no open-door hours like the county. “For $6,000, the amount of time we may have to sit around might not be worth it,” one member said. But it’s also $6,000 that could go to something else.
No decision yet. The board wants a year of solid footing first, with a discussion in early to mid-2027 and a solid answer by July. The county is also switching software programs, which complicates any handoff for the 2028 tax season.
What other numbers got locked in?
The budget session touched every corner of town life. Equipment repair was set at $45,000 after a string of breakdowns, including a $9,900 tow for the international and a stone that chewed through two heat exchangers in another truck. Sand and salt went to $2,500, with talk of making 100 more tons. The highway equipment outlay held at $13,500 instead of dropping to $10,000, because “things aren’t getting any cheaper.”
Insurance was left at $17,000 even though the actual came in lower at $16,603. Fire protection and ambulance per capita were bumped to $46,000 based on September numbers still to come. Legal attorney fees ran $3,900 so far, budgeted at $5,000 next year. The clerk will train a deputy and be out on leave from around September 18 through mid-October, with an eye on the 2027 election schedule.
Near the end, the board looked at a culvert on Gates Lake Road, a pair of 48-inch pipes the US Forest Service would engineer. Because it’s a state condition-four culvert under the 620 program, the state could fund 90%, but the engineered solution would have cost more than the county spent on Springs Drive. So the plan is to let the Forest Service handle it quietly, and one member worried “by the time the engineers get through, there’ll be a $400,000 job and we’d be liable for $40,000.”
The session closed by picking a next date: Wednesday, August 12 at 1 p.m.
Frequently Asked Questions
When is the Town of Worcester’s next budget meeting?
The board set Wednesday, August 12 at 1 p.m. for the next budget session, holding the option of closing the budget at the regular August meeting if members felt comfortable.
How much is the 2027 Town of Worcester budget?
Total estimated revenue penciled in around $992,820, with roughly $415,000 in surplus after a $100,000 transfer to capital reserve on top of an existing $150,000 cushion.
Why is the transfer station losing money?
The station runs an estimated $41,000 in income against $59,000 in expenses, partly because the $2-per-bag rate has not changed in three years. The board wants to raise rates and kept a three-person crew on busy days.
What is the $1.5 million Cranberry Lake Lane-Little Chicago project?
It is a road project that was originally estimated at over $2 million but came in around $1.5 million in bids. The town plans a line of credit up to $1.5 million, with reimbursement expected before year’s end and completion on October 15.
Why is the ambulance service behind on payroll?
The service owes five or six towns $10,000 each and was cut off from Medicare for a year, details the previous service director hid. A new billing service is now collecting on $338,000 in unbilled calls, with $11,000 in first payments received.
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