Despite the emphatic recommendation of new Selectman Matt Raimondi, who most recently served as the chair of the Board of Finance, the other members of the Board of Selectmen made it clear that they weren’t going to let BOF budget guidance tie their hands as they worked on the FY 2027 budget.
Close to five hours into an arduous BOS meeting on Tuesday, Feb. 17, that extended almost six hours, with the bulk of that time spent on budget presentations from different town departments, several BOS members shared strong words in opposition to the BOF’s practice of giving budget guidance, one member calling it “outdated.”
At this time the BOF has asked the BOS to present a budget with no greater than a 3.6% increase over the current fiscal year’s budget. Boucher, however, brought the BOS a budget with an 8.14% increase, which she said would be whittled down.
“I’m having trouble with the Board of Finance imposing what I think is an outdated methodology that contributes to sub-optimum resource allocation,” Selectman Rich McCarty said.
“I haven’t found the phrase ‘budget guidance’ anywhere in the Town Charter,” he said. “I think the exercise we’re going through doesn’t serve the taxpayers, doesn’t realistically provide what the town needs, and helps us keep falling behind with the town needs, with departments’ needs, with agency needs, whether it’s the library, the fire department or social services. And I think that also translates over to capital spending as well.”
Raimondi began the discussion expressing his belief that the BOS should work toward bringing the current proposal down to 3.6%, indicating there might be ways to make it possible.
“I think we need to hit the Board of Finance’s 3.6% budget,” he said. “They were adamant about that at the last meeting. They were adamant about that the meeting before. I think it would reflect really well on us if we don’t get cut this year.”
“I also think that we can do it,” Raimondi said. “It’s gonna take some work to figure it out, but I’m personally committed to do it.”
Second Selectman Ross Tartell disagreed.
“I think hitting 3.6[%] is a disaster for this town. A disaster,” he said, stating that this year the town has “the opportunity to invest.”
“I think to shoot for 3.6[%] is really difficult and a disservice to this town,” Tartell said. “Having said that, the Board of Finance has set its guidance. It’s time to say, ‘This is what it means.’ … If you hit this guidance, this is what it means. And I don’t think people want to do that, but they need to know what it is.”
He said that the town has been under-investing for a long time — something with which other BOS members concurred.
“It still feels like an artificial constraint to me,” Selectman David Tatkow said. “To me it feels like an anchoring bias … Where does that come from? I don’t believe it’s grounded in anything — anything that’s analytical … I feel like it’s an unrealistic constraint.”
First Selectman Toni Boucher, a Republican, expressed her alignment with the thoughts of the three Democratic BOS members.
“We have not funded positions that are essential and critical,” she said, noting the imminent population growth in the town, which she has often said does not have the staff nor infrastructure in place to meet it.
“There is, I think, an appetite in the public to fix things and bring them up to par,” she said.
“I do believe that 3.6[%] is not achievable …” Boucher said, noting that her new Chief Financial Officer Dawn Savo is in agreement.
“We’re leaving us very little room in the future to be in that danger zone of risking going over the budget and we don’t ever want to do that. We don’t ever want to do that,” she repeated.
The discussion followed a presentation and push by Fire Chief Jim Blanchfield and several other fire officials who want to see two more firefighter positions added in to the current budget proposal.
Last year, Blanchfield broached the idea of adding eight new positions to the town’s roster, ultimately settling for two, the second of which was only budget for half of this fiscal year.
McCarty, meanwhile, cited the Gilbert & Bennett School as what he called a prime example of how Wilton has neglected to spend money where it needs to.
“I don’t think that’s how you operate a town,” McCarty said. “I don’t think that’s how you meet the expectations of the community.”
“I think we should be telling the people with complete transparency what our town budget should be,” he said.
Raimondi defended the practice of the BOF giving guidance to both the BOS and the Board of Education on their respective budget as a way to dissuade political arguments later in the budget season. He noted that the BOE was pleased to have it, in part because it has helped heal rifts that previously existed between the two boards.
“I think the process we have in place has served Wilton very well,” he said, “and I don’t want the message from this table to be: ‘Don’t do guidance’ … It keeps us honest in terms of what we actually need.”
McCarty disagreed.
“That’s not keeping us honest about what we actually need,” he said, “because we have town agencies coming to us that we’ve left out this, that or the other thing … It’s an outdated methodology.”
Raimondi responded, “Just because something is old doesn’t mean it’s outdated,” citing the U.S. Constitution as an example.
“When we tax people, we’re taking money that they work hard for, even if it’s a dollar … If we’re gonna take one dollar from them, we better be damn sure it’s absolutely necessary,” he said.
Tartell praised Savo for her work “scrubbing” the budget to the point it’s currently at, but indicated they could or may go deeper.
“Just because we don’t like the guidance we got, doesn’t mean we’re not going to have sharp pencils,” he said.
Matt Raimondi’s recommendation that the town adhere to the Board of Finance’s reasonable 3.6% budget guidance makes all the sense in the world. The Board of Finance’s role in providing guidance is to safeguard the town’s finances and to keep our taxes manageable. As a former Board of Finance member in a nearby town, I can tell you that I have never heard of the idea of accepting guidance from a Board of Finance as “outdated”. If the Board of Selectmen don’t need to mind guidance from the Board of Finance, then why have a Board of Finance? Just let them tax and spend with no constraints.
Sounds like we’re in for higher spending and higher taxes.