Wilton’s chief financial officer stayed silent on Tuesday night, May 19, while the Board of Finance sharply criticized Town Hall officials Tuesday night over delays tied to the state-mandated annual audit and comments minimizing the importance of the June 30 filing deadline.
BOF members also expressed frustration with what they described as the unprofessional behavior of the consultant who’s supposed to be preparing for it.
BOF Chair Tim Birch even raised the question of possible legal action against Joseph Centofanti for a breach of contract based on his failure to adequately communicate with elected town officials on his progress, virtually ghosting Birch who has repeatedly tried to get answers from him on his progress.
Not having an audit by June 30, which is the statutory deadline, is embarrassing. It’s an embarrassment. It reflects poorly on the town.”
Board of finance chair tim birch
BOF members also expressed visible concern over comments made by CFO Dawn Savo and First Selectman Toni Boucher at Monday night’s Board of Selectmen meeting, where the two minimized what would happen if the town failed to meet the state deadline for completion of its annual audit on June 30. Boucher stated that “many, many” other municipalities in Connecticut “frequently” miss the deadline, while Savo, who downplayed the June 30 deadline as one that town officials are merely “hyper-focused” on, said there would be no consequences to the town if the deadline is missed.
No BOF member directly asked Savo to explain her reasoning or respond to their concerns. Instead, they let Savo, who was attending Tuesday’s meeting virtually, stay silent throughout their discussion.
“I was upset by last night’s meeting because things were said like, ‘Y’know, It’s not a big deal’ and ‘Other towns do it’ and ‘We’re a Triple A-rated town’ — or last time we were reviewed we were — and this is very new, foreign territory for us,” BOF member Kari Roberts said. “This is not normal and it’s not, ‘Oh, don’t worry about it.'”
“I just want to say again, I am hung up on a date,” she said. “We’re a Triple A-rated town and I just want to maintain that.”
Birch said he didn’t know whether the failure to meet the deadline would directly impact the town’s Aaa bond rating, but that was beside the point.
“At a minimum, not having an audit by June 30, which is the statutory deadline, is embarrassing,” Birch said. “It’s an embarrassment. It reflects poorly on the town.”
Birch recounted the efforts he has made over the past couple of months to make contact with Centofanti, who was originally hired as a per diem interim CFO and then, following Savo’s hire, has continued on at the same $375 hourly rate for several months to complete the reconciliation of the town’s Fiscal Year 2025 budget — work that some argue could be completed by a less qualified accountant at a much lower rate.
“I feel like a record that’s on skip,” Birch said with regard to Centofanti and his unresponsiveness. “I’m not sure there’s anyone more frustrated in this than this board and the Board of Selectmen that spoke last night. We’re all incredibly frustrated.”
“I would take the position that he breached his contract, quite frankly,” he said of Centofanti, though he admitted it would be a hard case to prove if the town decided to pursue legal action against him.
“We’re in sort of a no-win situation right now,” Birch said.
BOF member Kim Healy, who was serving on the BOS last year when issues in the Finance Department came to a head, said that, despite the argument placing blame for the myriad issues infecting Wilton’s budgets on the inefficient implementation of the new Munis software program — started in November 2024 — it was never brought to that board’s attention as an issue until after the former CFO Dawn Norton resigned from her job nine months later.
“The fact that this wasn’t even identified until the CFO was terminated and then it was brought to our attention when we hired the temporary person, there’s a lot of questions,” Healy said. “I think when we do finish, we should consider requesting more than a process review, but possibly a legal review or a forensic review. I’m not sure what happened, but I feel very misled about everything that I was ever told last year because at no time did we have any idea that it was this bad.”
BOF Vice Chair Rudy Escalante said that there was no documentation of any kind with regard to what has happened with the department’s software woes and what remediations have occurred.
“When the migration occurred there was no clear plan,” BOF member Prasad Iyer pointed out.
Savo, meanwhile, said that the auditors have told her that if the town is able to get all relevant financial data in to them by May 31, they will most likely be able to complete the audit on time.
