Key Points:
- Kim Healy accused Town Hall leadership of withholding information about $80,000 in budget savings during FY27 budget deliberations.
- Healy criticized changes to the town administrator role, arguing the revised position weakens financial oversight at Town Hall.
- BOF members largely did not respond to Healy’s allegations, though the board showed support for creating an audit subcommittee.
Why It Matters: The allegations raise broader questions about transparency, financial oversight and leadership structure at Town Hall as Wilton continues addressing ongoing audit and finance department concerns.
Board of Finance member Kim Healy accused Town Hall leadership of intentionally withholding budget information from the BOF and warned that recent hiring and management decisions could deepen Wilton’s ongoing financial oversight problems.
Saying she believed the Board of Finance had been “intentionally deceived,” Healy called for an explanation as to why an $80,000 savings in the Teamsters benefits costs from Fiscal Year 2026 was not disclosed before officials finalized decisions shaping the Fiscal Year 2027 budget.
Healy also raised concerns about First Selectman Toni Boucher changing the job description for the open town administrator position — and the Board of Selectmen subsequently reducing the salary — arguing that a better compensated and more qualified candidate was needed for the role, particularly in light of the town’s recent management and finance department turmoil.
Town Administrator Role
Boucher recently decided to limit the authority of the town administrator position without consulting with the BOS, an action she said was within her authority. In the process, she also changed the town’s organizational chart to make Chief Financial Officer Dawn Savo report directly to her instead of to the town administrator. Boucher also gave Savo new authority over several departments that previously had reported to former Town Administrator Matt Knickerbocker, who stepped down several months ago.
Boucher said the reduced scope of the position justified a lower salary range.
“I’m really troubled by this,” Healy told the BOF, explaining that she understood the new town administrator would come equipped with the skills to step in if the CFO (or any other department head) became unavailable or unable to work.
Wilton continues to grapple with the fallout from the sudden departure of former CFO Dawn Norton. Norton left after it was discovered she was simultaneously working another full-time job in Wyoming while continuing to work remotely for Wilton, without Boucher or Knickerbocker’s knowledge.
The controller, the second in command of the Finance Department, left Wilton a short time later.
Last August, the town hired an interim CFO named Joseph Centofanti at a rate of $375 per hour. Several BOF and BOS members have criticized him for not complying with their requests for in-person updates at meetings. He continues to log hours for work Boucher and Savo said he has been doing to reconcile Wilton’s Fiscal Year 2025 accounts, as the town struggles to prepare for the state audit in time for the state’s June 30 deadline.
More Intensive Job Description
After Knickerbocker announced that he would not return at the end of his three-year contract, a search committee that included Healy developed a revised job description for the town administrator position that placed significantly more emphasis on financial qualifications and experience.
Knickerbocker said that the updated job description was substantially more demanding than it had been when he applied, so much so that Knickerbocker himself said he would not have qualified for the position with the revised standards.
Healy argued that, if Knickerbocker had possessed the financial qualifications that were initially being sought for his replacement, the problems plaguing the Finance Department in the wake of Norton’s departure might have been handled more effectively — or possibly avoided altogether.
Healy noted that Boucher has publicly said she does not have a finance or accounting background, despite now directly overseeing Savo.
“It’s really hard to supervise somebody if you don’t even know what they’re doing,” Healy said.
Deception
Healy also told the BOF that she wanted members to be aware of what she described as a ‘deception’ by Boucher and Savo when they appeared at the BOF’s Apr. 9 meeting to answer questions about the town’s proposed FY’27 budget.
“We asked them specifically if there were going to be any savings for Fiscal ’26 in their budget,” Healy said. “We now know there’s going to be $500,000 but at the time, if I remember, everyone was like, ‘No way. They’re not going to have any savings for Fiscal ’26.'”
Healy said she later learned the Board of Selectmen had already been informed about approximately $80,000 in savings related to Teamsters insurance costs.
“Literally after that meeting, I got a call from a member of the Board of Selectmen asking me if we had been updated on the $80,000 savings from the Teamsters’ insurance cost, and that the Board of Selectmen had been told about that savings a week earlier,” she said. “We were not told about it.”
Healy said BOF members had instead been told in executive session that the Teamsters costs were going to run over-budget.
“Obviously, I’ll say, I was not pleased to hear that,” Healy continued. “I feel like we were intentionally deceived. I think we would have voted to reduce their budget by more than $50,000 knowing they were sitting on $80,000 in savings already, and I hope that you all share my frustration.”
Most BOF members, however, did not respond to Healy’s comments, aside from BOF member Kari Roberts briefly agreeing with the criticism.
“That wasn’t transparent,” Roberts said.
Muted BOF Reaction
BOF Chair Tim Birch did not directly respond to Healy’s concerns about the matter beyond noting that the BOF had no authority over the hiring of a town administrator or the town’s organizational chart.
“I understand that,” Healy said, “but I think as a board we can have a friendly conversation and we should invite the Board of Selectmen to us and explain we’re in a really bad situation because the town administrator didn’t have the skills needed and I think it would set us up for a much better future if we had skilled people running the town.”
Other BOF members did not make any comments on the matter.
Birch did, however, respond positively to Healy’s suggestion that the BOF create an audit subcommittee to take a closer look at the next audit and the related process and procedures.
“I think there’s a lot of merit to this,” Birch said, suggesting that the subcommittee could potentially include members of both the BOF and BOS, “just from a buy-in perspective.”
Birch asked Healy to develop a proposed mission statement, timeline, membership ideas and a list of objectives for the subcommittee.
“I’m personally supportive to take that and adopt it as early as the next meeting,” he said.
GOOD Morning Wilton has reached out to First Selectman Toni Boucher and CFO Dawn Savo for comment regarding Kim Healy’s remarks and the BOF discussion. The story will be updated accordingly with any response.