Despite the Board of Finance‘s clear message that it did not want the town fund a new high-paying management position in the Department of Public Works at this time, First Selectman Toni Boucher told the Board of Selectmen on Friday, Mar. 27, that, in essence, once their budget is approved by the town, it becomes their choice on how they want to spend it.
“It’s also up to the Board of Selectmen, once we get our decisions on cuts, on where we might want to make those cuts,” Boucher said. “The Charter allows us to change those cuts depending on where we think the best priorities are. We do have to stay with the bottom-line number of the full cuts that are given us, but there is flexibility on the part of the members of the Board of Selectmen.”
The message from Town Hall — and DPW Director Frank Smeriglio — has been very clear for months that Smeriglio is feeling overwhelmed and somewhat unhappy with his workload. Over the last month Boucher has made a valiant effort to not only get Smeriglio a pay increase, but has fought hard for a new high-paying hire in his department.
In particular, Smeriglio has opined that management of both town-side and school construction projects has spread his department thin. Over the past year, particularly in meetings with the Wilton Capital Planning Committee, he has directly and indirectly urged the town to clarify the different roles and responsibilities with regard to the school projects in particular.
At Friday’s meeting Smeriglio stood by the claim that this year there are too many infrastructure projects that will be going on, so he will need to spend more time focused on town-side “civil” work.
“The thing is, I can’t be that person on the Board of Ed[ucation] side to be involved with their meetings for their buildings because my focus is gonna be on the civil side this year … I can’t just be partially involved with making decisions on something that I have no authority over,” he said.
Smeriglio also maintained that neither Jeff Pardo, assistant DPW director and facilities manager, nor William Cushman, construction coordinator and inspector, will have enough time to handle all that’s on their plate.
“Jeff’s focus is going to be on the facilities that are in construction that we have money for … Jeff is focusing on the construction part of the projects in the queue right now,” Smeriglio said.
At this time, with the completion of the new police headquarters, it’s unclear exactly how many projects are going to be on either Pardo’s or Smeriglio’s plate. According to a document Smeriglio shared with the BOS, Pardo’s purview will potentially include renovations at the Raymond Ambler House, which has a construction bid planned for June, 2026; miscellaneous repair work at Town Hall scheduled for after the police station headquarters in completed; and the variety of school projects due to take place during the summer of 2026.
Smeriglio, meanwhile, along with the ongoing paving of town roads, has five projects scheduled to start construction in 2026, including three bridge repair projects that are being done in tandem with state authorities, the culvert at Musket Ridge Ln., and the Wilton Loop North Trail in the Norwalk River Valley Trail.
“I do worry about the Board of Ed facility projects … It’s my time that becomes an issue because you saw all the grant projects that were approved within the last month,” Smeriglio said, indicating the bridge projects. “My focus has got to be on that. Jeff’s focus is to deal with the construction projects that were approved in Fiscal Year ’26 that are going to construction this spring, summer, and fall.”
The newly proposed “capital planning, facilities, and real estate manager” position, which offers a starting salary of $160,000 to $175,000, raised some eyebrows among Board of Finance members, who aren’t convinced there’s a need at this time. Instead, they want to see Boucher invest money in hiring a new town administrator immediately to help get things organized and back on task after a very chaotic year that included the departure of some key Town Hall personnel and a range of management problems in finance and beyond that troubled the town.
Boucher, who has simultaneously pushed for Smeriglio’s salary to raise to $180,000, maintains that the person in this role would also play some part in management or potential sale of the town-owned residential properties. She has adamantly argued that it was a more important position than a new town administrator.
Selectman Matt Raimondi pointed out that there are other staffing options that could help DPW in terms of helping for the immediate future.
“I know it’s not a perfect transition,” he said, having originally suggesting to the BOS that it put off hiring this new DPW position in favor of the town administrator.
As he has indicated on several occasions, Smeriglio noted that there was a policy decision that had to be made with regard to overseeing the school facilities, which are technically owned by the town but, in essence, leased to the Board of Education.
“I think with the assistance that Board of Ed is considering, I think the formula for that is that [Superintendent] Kevin [Smith] and [BOE Plant Manager] Jose [Figueroa] are the lead, but there should also be someone from the town dealing with making decisions,” Smeriglio said. “The town has to decide are they town buildings or are they Board of Ed buildings.”
Asked about Cushman’s role, Smeriglio said he serves as the “eyes and ears” in facilities projects that are currently underway.
As an example, Smeriglio cited three separate school projects that took place during the summer, and while he said Pardo was going out to the sites in the capacity of project manager once a day, Cushman had to also go out three times a day in order to, Smeriglio implied, keep the contractors on task and doing their work.
“He’s there at different times during the day … When you’re managing these projects you can’t just go out once a day, the same time every day, because once you leave and they know you’re not out there anymore — you just can’t do that.”
“There’s also other projects that are not bonded that we pay for out of our capital budget,” Smeriglio said of Cushman’s work.
To enhance his argument for more help, Smeriglio also presented the BOS with a line graph showing 20-year trends in three areas, with different lines show trends for school facilities projects, town facilities projects, and a third line for DPW & Grants projects. The vertical axis of the chart shows the total amount of money spent on combined projects in these three categories, though the horizontal axis, which is the timeline of Fiscal Years beginning in 2009, does not clarify what the overall time commitments were with regard to the projects.
Still, Smeriglio indicated that both the school facilities and DPW and grant project lines were on an upward trend.
He said the increase in money that is going to be spent on DPW and grant projects in particular is what’s motivating him to seek additional staff help.
“The value of the roadway work is way higher than it’s ever been. Way higher than it’s ever been,” he repeated. “So my focus has to be on that. We have two engineers and a third person that helps with all roadway projects, right-of-way projects, but this work is way more than in the past, so my focus has to be on that.”