Key Points
- The Board of Finance established a Temporary Audit Remediation and Financial Reporting Subcommittee to track audit findings and ensure corrective actions are implemented.
- BOF members debated the group’s mission, with some favoring a broader historical context and others preferring a narrower focus that would not discourage town staff.
- The subcommittee is being formed as Wilton’s overdue FY25 audit remains unfinished and officials anticipate a third consecutive year with significant audit finding concerns.
Why It Matters: The new subcommittee represents the Board of Finance’s most formal effort yet to ensure recurring audit deficiencies are corrected and not repeated, as scrutiny of Wilton’s financial management continues.
The Board of Finance is moving forward with the creation of an audit subcommittee that will aim to keep tabs on audit findings and help guide the BOF toward resolving related issues in a timely manner.
The group is the brainchild of BOF member Kim Healy, who said it’s important for the town to face up to what has become a pattern of issues regarding its financial health.
“Wilton will have three consecutive years of material weaknesses or significant deficiencies identified during its audits,” Healy told GOOD Morning Wilton, with the nearly foregone conclusion that when the current overdue audit is finally completed for Fiscal Year 2025 it will include areas of concern.
“Each year the town’s response has been that the issues would be addressed,” she said. “However, they have not been resolved. This subcommittee will provide an additional layer of oversight until the town’s audits no longer contain any findings.”
Last year the state audit for Fiscal Year 2024 showed a “material weakness in internal control over financial reporting,” according to Leslie Zoll, the town’s consulting auditor with CliftonLarsonAllen LLP, who is again handing Wilton’s audit this year. She attributed the issue last year to a staffing shortage in the Finance Department, which she said resulted in the town struggling to close out its books in time and spot some errors in the process.
“We did find some errors and needed to make adjusting entries,” Zoll said last year, blaming the Town Hall staff’s inability to adequately review the balance sheet accounts in a timely manner.
This year staffing became an even bigger issue after both the town’s chief financial officer and controller left, forcing the Finance Department to rely on an outside consultant to close the books on FY25. Town officials have not publicly explained why consultant Joseph Centofanti has not yet completed the reconciliation of the FY25 accounts, which has resulted in Wilton missing the June 30th deadline for the audit.
At this time town officials are hoping to see it completed by the end of the summer, but at the very least the missed deadline alone will result in some level of failure on the town’s part when it is evaluated in the audit’s assessment.
During the BOF meeting on July 14, BOF Chair Tim Birch took a heavy red pen to the draft of the subcommittee’s charge and description, removing around two-thirds of the language that Healy had written.
“I think you will alienate [Chief Financial Officer] Dawn [Savo] and some BOS members by repeating all the problems,” Birch shared in a single comment on the document in explanation of his suggested changes.
The discussion reflected a broader dynamic that has emerged in recent months: Some elected officials have pressed for answers about Wilton’s financial management — including questions surrounding consultant Joseph Centofanti‘s work — while also emphasizing that Savo inherited many of the issues now under review.
New revelations continue to emerge regarding financial housekeeping — the most recent being emerging details on seemingly unchecked overages in the BOS’s Fiscal Year 2025 operating budget in several departments. First Selectman Toni Boucher announced last week that the BOF and BOS would be having a joint meeting to discuss the issue, and the BOS is holding a special meeting this evening, Monday, July 27.
Previously, at the June 9 BOF meeting, Birch, in tandem with Vice Chair Rudy Escalante, tried to encourage the participation of the Board of Selectmen on the subcommittee.
“I think there has to be participation by the Board of Selectmen on that committee,” Birch said, continuing to try and demonstrate a genial sensitivity to working with that board.
Healy, however, pointed out that this presented a conflict.
“You can’t have the Board of Selectmen on the audit committee,” Healy said. “They can’t audit themselves … You can’t audit yourself. It’s a conflict of interest.”
In the end, however, Healy agreed to invite at least one member of the BOS onto the subcommittee.
Birch sought to strike several paragraphs from Healy’s draft that originally described some of Wilton’s history with the annual audit, including specifics on the deficiencies that were highlighted over the last 12 or so years.
BOF member Kari Roberts opposed cutting that history. “I actually liked the draft the way it was,” she said, citing the value of contextualizing the work and including a resource of past developments.
Healy said that part of the purpose was to understand where and how problems might have started. She noted that with regard to both FY23 and FY24, the town’s auditors recommended corrective actions to which the town agreed, but did not implement.
Healy said that the subcommittee is potentially a temporary group, pending repair of process issues that might face the town in future audits. She wrote that the group will terminate following implementation of the actions required to remediate issues ideally for two years running.
The BOF appointed Healy, Escalante and Roberts to serve on the subcommittee. While Escalante was not in attendance at the July 14 BOF meeting, Birch advocated having him directly involved.
Birch stated that the subcommittee would be dealing with both the FY25 and then next year the FY26 audit in all likelihood.
“When we have action steps or implementation of whatever recommendations are in the audit,” he said, “then this committee is then going to monitor those recommendations to make sure that those recommendations proceed on a basis to have corrective action.”
Birch said the group is officially to be known as the “Temporary Audit Remediation and Financial Reporting Subcommittee.”
