Facing challenges from at least one Board of Selectmen member and the chair of the Board of Finance, First Selectman Toni Boucher doubled down on an implicit claim that her new budget proposal is an accurate comparison to the current year, calling on her chief finance officer to defend her logic.

At the Board of Selectmen special meeting on Monday, Feb. 10, Boucher, alongside Town Administrator Matt Knickerbocker, presented a $39,545,575 budget for fiscal 2026, representing a 10.39% increase in operating capital and operating expenses over the current year’s budget of $35,822,934.

In her budget document, however, Boucher broke with the accounting procedure the town has always followed and included a $1.4 million reduction in debt service in the calculations, adding that figure to the total operating expenses and capital to create a combined number of $45,888,300, which then represents a 2.99% increase over the current year when debt service is included.

The BOF has asked the BOS to present a budget that stays below a 3% increase over the current year.

Monday evening, Selectwoman Kim Healy challenged Boucher’s approach. At the Board of Selectmen’s second budget review meeting on Wednesday evening, Feb. 12, Boucher also heard pushback from Wilton Board of Finance Chair Matt Raimondi, who sat through more than three hours of discussion to make a statement during public comment reiterating that debt service was not considered part of the BOS budget.

“I just wanted everyone to hear this from me,” Raimondi said.”The Board of Finance 3.0% guidance, being very clear, that was the operating expenses and that was the operating capital.”

While operating expenses and operating capital are discretionary, Raimondi said, “debt service is a fixed payment. We can’t really lower it. It is an obligation of the town … to service our debts.”

“That is also why we don’t include that with the Board of Selectmen budget,” he said.

Boucher, however, called on Town CFO Dawn Norton to defend her method of presenting the numbers.

“It’s just a different way of looking at it … In the past it was never combined with the Board of Selectmen’s operating budget (but) we brought it together to have that look,” Norton said, “and it is something that the Board of Selectmen has purview over, as well as the operating (budget) itself, as well as capital.”

“It’s just a different way of looking at it,” she said again.

“We’re not kicking any projects down the road,” Norton added, referencing a comment Healy had made Monday evening.

At the time, Healy was the only person to point out the discrepancy involved in using the debt service number, noting that the town would be “kicking the can down the road” were it to delay paying debt.

At Wednesday’s meeting, Boucher made reference to Healy’s concerns without naming her.

“Some of the criticism from the last meeting came when people suggested that debt service and operating capital should not be combined to give us our 2.99%,” Boucher said, “and the question about whether it was done before or how it was calculated, or whether it was on two separate lines, and then you came to the same conclusion.”

Healy responded to Boucher’s reference.

“You’re calling me out, because I’m the one who brought up all of those things you mentioned,” Healy said. “That’s fine (but) we don’t really evaluate that number … We decide what we’re going to bond, but this debt service is future.”

Healy then addressed Norton. “The thing that you did not mention, Dawn, is that the Board of Finance does not care about the Debt Service … They have always looked at operating and capital.”

Where Can Reductions be Made?

The BOS meetings this week showcased presentations from a range of town department heads about their budgets. Wednesday evening, Healy reacted to repeated statements made on both evenings by Boucher and Knickerbocker that several departments were understaffed.

“I don’t feel like we’re understaffed. I gotta tell you,” Healy said.

In response, Boucher suggested that Healy spend a week at Town Hall to learn about all the needs there.

“You have to be living at Town Hall day to day to see where the pressure points are,” Boucher said.

At the same time, Boucher has put Healy and the board directly in the position of having to make the sizable cuts that are not yet woven into the proposed budget, but in all likelihood need to be in order to meet BOF guidance.

Healy said Monday that, while Boucher is passing the buck to the board regarding cuts, its members are not in a knowledgeable enough position to make those decisions, unlike Boucher and Knickerbocker, who are both paid employees of the town.

Boucher, however, stated that that was the purpose of having each department head make their presentation on their individual budgets to the BOS.

On Wednesday night the BOS heard details about the Department of Public Works, Finance, IT and Human Resources.

Knickerbocker wrapped up the meeting by presenting BOS members with a 17-page document he said had just been prepared, which showed the various items that had been cut while they were preparing the budget.

“It shows that we eliminated just under $690,000 of department requests even before we got into the first meeting,” he said, with more cuts coming subsequently.

The document was not made available to the public on Wednesday night, nor does it come up in a search of the town’s website.

In October, Knickerbocker and Boucher shared a preliminary budget that represented a 6% increase over the current year, which they said at the time was an inflated estimate because the town was involved in several contract negotiations.

Knickerbocker said Wednesday night that they had not known at the time that insurance costs would be as high as they turned out to be, thus increasing the budget.

“We’ve got some tough decisions to make and we need your guidance and your input … If I could have done it without your guidance, I would have done it,” he said.

Boucher said that the BOS members needed to “process” the situation and contemplate where cuts may be viable.

“There’s a lot to absorb,” she said. “It can sink in over the next few days and the next few weeks.”

GOOD Morning Wilton has reached out to Boucher and Knickerbocker with questions but has not heard back as of publication time.