FY25 Audit Update: Despite BOF Chair’s Legal Objections, BOS Approves $1.3 Million in Budget Transfers

Despite ongoing concerns expressed by Wilton’s Board of Finance chair over the town’s legal authority to make retroactive budget transfers and lingering questions about how Fiscal Year 2025 budget overages occurred, the Board of Selectmen unanimously approved transferring $1.3 million between various departments on Monday night, July 27.

The $1,300,329 transfer, requested by Chief Financial Officer Dawn Savo, was intended to reconcile the town’s FY25 books so Wilton can finally proceed with its overdue audit. Extended delays in completing an audit could expose a municipality to state fines and put its credit rating in jeopardy.

Several selectmen acknowledged that, while satisfied for the moment with explanations from Savo and First Selectman Toni Boucher about how the accounting was being done, broader questions about process and governance still remain: Who knew about the budget overages? Why were various fund transfers made between accounts and who approved them? Why were the financial moves made without requisite approval from the selectmen? Some BOS members also felt that the legal issues raised by the BOF Chair remain unresolved.

“It Essentially Emasculates the BOF“

Savo requested Monday’s special meeting to seek BOS approval of the transfer. She and Boucher cited a June 4 memo from Wilton’s town counsel, Berchem Moses, with legal analysis justifying why approval was not required from the Board of Finance as well as the guidance they followed in seeking to reconcile the overages.

Both Boucher and Savo were asked by GOOD Morning Wilton why the request had been made for transfer guidelines from Berchem Moses more than a month before the FY25 overages were even brought to the attention of the BOS at its July 6 meeting.

Boucher responded Tuesday morning that she consulted the attorneys for clarification and to confirm “past practice.”

“The question was raised at that time. I do not recall who raised it,” Boucher said.

The June 4 memo, written by attorneys Nicholas Bamonte and Brendan Liberati, said that in their opinion, neither transfers between town departments, nor transfers within a single department, require BOF approval. It also stated that the BOS can expend money over and above the budget approved by the Annual Town Meeting up to 0.25% of the town’s overall budget without either BOF or Town Meeting approval.

BOF Chair Tim Birch, however, is not convinced that Wilton’s longtime legal counsel got it right in its interpretation of state law.

In a memo to Boucher and the BOS dated July 27, Birch — who is also an attorney — maintained that state statute describes that, in the event of departments exceeding their individual budgets, any transfer between departments requires BOF approval.

“By adopting the legal analysis of the Memo,” Birch said, “which as I have written above I do not believe is accurate, it essentially emasculates the power of the Board of Finance to oversee the line-item budget of the Board of Selectmen.”

“If the Board of Selectmen can move funds around a variety of line items without the consent of the Board of Finance, it renders that power meaningless,” he said. “The Board of Selectmen can approve a budget, then effectively rewrite it without any oversight.”

Significant Issues & Unanswered Questions

Boucher began Monday’s one-hour meeting by reading a prepared statement attributing the town’s financial problems to a series of inherited and operational issues. Although they happened under her leadership, she did not accept any responsibility herself for what occurred.

“We had an issue with a previous CFO working both in Wyoming and Wilton without our knowledge, which required our town to enlist a private auditing firm,” she said, referring to the hiring of Joseph Centofanti as interim CFO and later as a long-term accounting consultant.

She also attributed issues to Wilton’s transition between two financial software systems, which she said resulted in incorrect coding of accounts, misidentification of budget items and errors in tracking expenditures.

Savo presented a list of close to 150 separate transfers ranging from one dollar up to $132,800 for police overtime. Large areas where budgets were overspent included costs for legal counsel, which went more than $120,000 over budget.

“The first selectwoman and I have had discussions with town counsel regarding the escalating cost of legal for the town and some of that is partially due to increases in rates that we’re watching now more closely,” Savo said.

Boucher pointed out that litigation costs have been increasing but said she was providing the BOS with a monthly spreadsheet of legal expenses by case.

Funds were also needed to offset overages for insurance in different areas accounting for more than $100,000. Some of this Boucher attributed to changes made by the previous town administrator, Matt Knickerbocker, who among other things started the town on insurance in the event of cyber attacks.

Just last week it was believed that, with all of the overages, the town had overspent the FY25 budget by more than $300,000 based on preliminary numbers prepared by Centofanti. His figures, however, had failed to include the drawdown of a $380,000 medical reserve that was never accounted for.

Savo, who said she recently received questions about the reserve, said she “did uncover some information” that this medical reserve transfer had not occurred.

“We’re no longer over budget because that transfer has been done,” she said.

Savo said that all of these discoveries were “part of the normal audit process, when you go through and things are uncovered.”

“What was send to us previously by Joe, the preliminary numbers were (presented) prior to this process,” she said. “So I think it’s normal to find things. That just happened to be a large number.”

Savo said the approval of the transfers by the selectmen to reconcile the accounts would resolve the accounting problems for FY25.

“The good news is that the town Board of Selectmen budget is [now] under budget for ’25, roughly $70,000,” Savo said.

Salary Questions

Review of the FY25 transfers also raised questions about certain employee salary increases that occurred after the budget was adopted and whether some of those increases should have been approved by the Board of Selectmen. 

“In general the salary line items were mostly under budget, but there were a few that were over budget,” Savo said.

She said that some Town Hall employees went directly to the Human Resources Department to review their compensation.

“In the Building Department there was a review done of comparable towns in the area of what building officials were making, so there was an increase that was made to two positions in that department,” Savo said

Increases in the Police Department‘s part-time salary line, she said, were brought to the previous CFO’s attention by the police chief during 2025, who attributed increased overtime to vacant positions that required officers to cover open shifts. Salary increases were granted to the town’s two Registrar of Voters because, Boucher said, they assumed more responsibilities after early voting was implemented after the FY25 budget had been adopted.

Selectman Matt Raimondi said his concern was not whether those salary increases were justified, but whether proper process was followed. He said some should have been brought before the Board of Selectmen for approval and that the BOS has authority over salaries of department heads and elected officials, including the first selectman.

“The registrars, for example, are elected positions by charter,” Raimondi said. “The Board of Selectmen needs to vote on those salaries.” He added that the board likely would have approved the increases, “but they just weren’t brought before us,” arguing that such actions should be formally approved in the future.

Boucher responded with an example — converting an outside IT consultant into a full-time employee. She said she and Knickerbocker believed BOS approval was unnecessary because it involved a junior staff position rather than a department head. She acknowledged, however, that the additional salary and benefits contributed to budget overages and said similar situations should be monitored more closely in the future.

With regard to the registrars, Boucher acknowledged it was not in her purview to evaluate their performance as elected officials, though she noted they are also town employees. However, instead of admitting that she had approved the pay increase, she questioned how the Charter applies to elected officials and suggested the issue should be discussed “offline” later with town counsel. Raimondi replied that he believed the Charter was clear and cited Section C-49 as governing registrar compensation.

Confidence Delivered

Selectman David Tatkow praised Savo for her explanation of the overages, stating that the level of detail she provided was “excellent.”

“I think that got to the heart of many of the bigger line-item transfers,” he said. “From my perspective they seem justifiable, so I have no issue with the content of the transactions.”

“I think answering that level of detail brings confidence,” Tatkow said, “more confidence to myself and hopefully to others in the town who, you know, were concerned about what had been going on.”

Second Selectman Ross Tartell also praised Savo, also indicating that she and Centofanti had put measures in place to avoid any future issues, referencing “a lot of process re-engineering” that he implied they have done during the past six months.

“Are those new processes working and are you confident that as you look at that, they will be tweaked and things will move ahead because those processes were messed up and now you’ve worked really hard to get them back on track?” Tartell asked.

Savo said this was a great question.

“Yes, I feel very confident that we are going in the right direction,” she said, “that we have implemented processes. We’re implementing controls within the system.”

The selectmen acknowledged one important change that has been made has been to ask Savo to provide officials with monthly updates on the town’s finances — something already done regularly with the Board of Education budget and something former CFO Dawn Norton was supposedly going to be doing. That would help keep them better informed about problems before they became too large.

“None of these, to me, are surprises,” Savo said of the problematic overages. “We can look into them definitely further, and we can make sure going forward we are reporting to the board as you get your monthly updates.”

Savo emphasized several times that the array of overages did not amount to malfeasance in any way, nor did Centofanti’s appraisal of the FY25 numbers show anything constituting theft or intentional illegality.

Legal Questions Remain Unresolved

Several BOS members said that, while they felt that they were on solid ground in approving the funding transfers to account for budget overages and complete the audit, they were unclear on whether Birch’s concerns about the town attorney’s take on the situation had merit.

“I truly don’t understand the legal issue,” Tartell said. “I do understand the town counsel … They’ve got a good track record. We’ve worked with them for years. They’re our counsel. I suggest we follow their advice.”

Selectman Rich McCarty, an attorney, said he had reviewed the state statute himself and was satisfied that the town’s lawyers had provided a sufficient legal basis for the board to act.

“For purposes tonight, I am satisfied with [their] opinion,” McCarty said.

As the former chair of the BOF, however, Raimondi noted that his faith had in the past been shaken by the actions and advice of Berchem Moses.

“I think that the Board of Finance potentially does have a role here,” Raimondi said. “And quite frankly, town counsel has gotten things wrong before. And when I was chairman of the Board of Finance, we went into that quite a bit.”

“I think there’s a question here to explore,” he said. “But for where we are right now, for the precedent that we have, again it’s not a tacit approval, but I’m willing to go in favor [of tonight’s funds transfer] vote.”

Following the meeting, Birch told GMW that he stood by his assessment of the legality of the situation in relation to the town counsel’s memo.

“The BOS appears to have clearly voted to the contrary,” Birch said. “I have asked to have a conversation with town counsel to discuss our different analysis. I think my analysis speaks for itself.”