WILLOW CREEK — Over 90 residents filled the Willow Creek Community Hall on Monday evening for the town’s annual budget hearing — a turnout that Town Clerk Margaret Hollis described as “the largest I’ve seen since the mill closed.”
The proposed $3.2 million municipal budget represents a 2.8% increase over the current fiscal year, driven primarily by rising fuel costs for the school bus fleet and a mandated upgrade to the town’s water system. The school budget, presented separately by Principal Colleen Desjardins, drew the sharpest questions from the floor.
Desjardins, who has watched enrollment at the Willow Creek K-8 School decline from 210 to 142 students over the past decade, proposed a modest increase in instructional spending — $18,000 for updated science textbooks and $7,500 for a part-time reading specialist.
“We are asking our teachers to meet state standards with materials from 2014,” Desjardins told the assembly. “I know money is tight. But the children of Willow Creek cannot afford another year of outdated resources.”
Resident Henry Farr, the town’s last dairy farmer, rose to question the proposed 3% increase in the property tax rate. “I’m not against the school,” Farr said, his voice carrying the quiet weariness of someone who has attended these meetings for decades. “But I’ve got a tax bill on a farm that hasn’t turned a profit in seven years. At some point, something has to give.”
The final budget will be presented for approval at the annual Town Meeting in March.