Board of Finance Chair Tim Birch, a deliberate and soft-spoken attorney who does not appear to be easily ruffled, is fast losing patience with the Board of Selectmen and its failure to provide his people with information.
In particular, he and the BOF want and need answers from Interim Chief Financial Officer Joe Centofanti about exactly what’s happening under his watch and when work will be completed on closing the books on Fiscal Year 2025, but First Selectman Toni Boucher and the BOS appear to be ignoring Birch’s recurring requests for answers.
“We’ve asked for a timeline,” Birch told the BOF at its meeting on Monday, Feb. 24. “We’ve asked about resources being dedicated. There’s nobody that feels like they’re hitting their head against the wall more than I am.”
When it meets on Thursday, Feb. 26, the BOS will hear at least one BOF member voicing this frustration with a joint statement from the BOF expressing its dissatisfaction and consternation.
On Monday, the BOF spent time consolidating a list of more than 50 questions it has for the BOS, including requests for headcount and salary charts among Town Hall departments, view-only access to Munis software accounts, Centofanti’s contract and an explanation as to when the BOS will approve those services in relation to Boucher already having signed invoices, timelines for the audit and implementation of Munis, and many more.
“There are a lot of questions,” Birch said, “and just as an FYI, according to [CFO] Dawn [Savo], the Board of Selectmen had 60 questions that they asked, so they have a lot of work to do.”
“I’ve sent all the questions that you guys have given me to the Board of Selectmen, to Dawn and Toni … I don’t mind submitting them again because this way we have a master list of questions,” Birch said, “which I think is positive because it allows us to track responses better.”
Both BOF Vice Chair Rudy Escalante and member Eric Fanwick expressed support for the relevancy of the questions.
“I don’t think any of the questions are unreasonable,” Escalante said.
“I think they are great questions,” Fanwick said.
Member Kim Healy pointed out, however, that the selectmen and Town Hall have yet to answer any of them, leaving the BOF with incomplete information as it attempts to evaluate the town’s finances for Fiscal Year 2027.
“I guess we’re not going to get anything until March now,” she said, based on recent comments from Boucher and Savo that Centofanti reported he would not be completing the review of 2025 finances until the end of March.
“It would appear that we will not get anything we can depend on until March,” Birch said. “I have expressed my concern about lack of communication with Joe and his firm, and their inability to even come up with a range for a budget for the remainder of the term, but I haven’t gotten anywhere, to be honest.”
“We’re going to fast approach a real bonding-slash-fiscal crisis if this extends much beyond what has now been promised,” he said. “If you don’t have your audit done by June 30th, there are real issues that come with that.”
Other BOF members expressed a strong desire to urge Boucher and the BOS to get Centofanti to attend the BOF’s next meeting.
“I would be in favor of telling the first selectwoman or the Board of Selectmen or whomever, to tell Joe Centofanti that we want him in front of us at our next meeting,” Roberts said, “and that we need to see his timeline of what needs to be done and the resources he will be allocating to it.”
Birch, however, expressed some hopelessness in regard to that board and Boucher.
“I don’t know how many times we can ask that question,” he said. “We’ve been asking it since literally before this board was elected. We’ve been asking it since last year.”
“What recourse do we have?” Healy asked.
Birch answered, “We don’t have any because we can’t hire anybody. That’s the recourse.”
Roberts said, however, “But can we strongly, strongly send a notification to the Board of Selectmen that we are extremely apprehensive … and what are they gonna do about it?”
Again, Birch said the message has been sent multiple times with no response, explaining that he almost always includes all four other BOS members in his correspondence with Boucher.
“What is preventing him from coming into our next meeting?” Roberts asked.
“Nothing,” Birch said. “I don’t know that we can force him, but nothing.”
Healy pointed out that ultimately the BOS was legally required to provide them the details they request.
“We are entitled to information,” she said. “They can’t stonewall us forever. We’ve been asking for months.”
One question Healy had regarded Centofanti’s bringing in additional paid consultants to do work for which she said they already had someone on staff, even if necessitated them doing some overtime.
Roberts opined how Boucher and other officials have strived to paint a picture that everything was fine, that it was all going to be okay.
“Clearly it’s not,” she said.
Birch said he would put together a statement, which Roberts said she would bring before the BOS at its meeting on Thursday.
“I think it should be clear we’re trying to help … We’re not trying to be adversarial,” she said. “We’re trying to help because this is not working the way it currently is.”
“There’s a big white elephant in the room and we need to get it out of the room,” she said.
Resident Sara Curtis, who reflected back some of the frustration with the current administration — calling it unacceptable — praised the BOF for its process.
“This was a wonderful meeting,” she said, praising the BOF for its transparency and focus on details.
“I think everything that you brought up, it captures the questions that residents are asking all the time,” Curtis said, including personnel questions, the organization structure of the town administration, and how people are even evaluated in their roles.
“You have to ask yourself from the BOS side, ‘Who’s minding the store?’ and I think the answer is no one.”
When will Toni’s turn end? It can’t came fast enough!