Letter: Wilton Taxpayers Deserve Transparency and Answers on Town Hall’s Financial Inconsistencies

To the Editor:

Wilton’s FY25 audit was due last December. It still isn’t done. In August 2025, after the CFO resigned, the Town hired PKF O’Connor Davies to run finance, rebuild the books and prepare for the audit. The controller left soon after… and this week the current CFO wrote that the consultant’s primary work was finished April 15 — but that conflicts with things she and the first selectman have told the Board of Selectmen and town residents over the last six months. The accounts don’t line up, and town residents may be left holding a very expensive bill at the end of the day.

This isn’t about one person. Our new CFO inherited a mess. The question is why it seems no one at Town Hall can answer a simple factual question with a fact. Town finances aren’t a matter of opinion. The numbers exist and they’re on record. So why can’t they be produced? And why don’t the answers we’re being given line up?

Invoices

• Eleven PKF invoices from September 2025 through July 2026, obtained by FOIA, total $257,262. That includes roughly 600 hours of one consultant’s time at $375 an hour, under an engagement letter with no cap on hours and no cap on total value. The November and December invoices, $78,565 between them, are signed “OK to pay” by the first selectman. In June the CFO said payments were being withheld. Which invoices? How much? Who approved the rest? How could payments be withheld in June if work was “finished” in April? And if he finished in April, why was Wilton billed $32,531 for 87 hours of his reconciliation work from May through July?

• The only rate term outlined in the engagement letter is for “discounted hourly rates” of $325 to $375. It doesn’t list any hourly rates for the manager ($255) and staff ($120) that Wilton was charged on several invoices. 

• The invoices themselves carried a separate 7% discount from October through December. On Jan. 20, the selectmen publicly asked for a bigger discount. The next invoice, dated Jan. 31, cut the discount to 3%, where it has stayed. Who agreed to the smaller discount?

Work Expectations

• The CFO’s recent letter to GMW says the consultant’s primary work was completed April 15. But in May the first selectman said keeping him on to complete the job was a requirement of the CFO’s hire. In June they said the reconciliation was still “in progress.” In July the boards got a “draft final” of the reconciliation. After April 15, PKF billed another $39,377, including 87 more hours ($32,531) of the consultant’s time, all under the same description as the original work: “general ledger reconciliation services and audit prep.” All of those statements came from Town Hall, and they don’t line up. Which one is accurate?

• The CFO now says her own involvement in closing FY25 was “always an expectation.” Until Sept. 8, Board of Finance members said they understood FY25 was entirely the consultant’s responsibility and the CFO was working only on FY26. Who told them that?

• The CFO’s letter also points to the incomplete Munis software implementation. That problem was already there when the consultant was hired 13 months ago. If it was the problem then, why is it still the explanation now for the audit delay? In May the Board of Finance vice chair said there was “no documentation of any kind” of the software remediation. Is there now?

• The Aug. 20, 2025 engagement letter with PKF says the consultant is “available to attend meetings, as necessary.” The Rider says nothing in the letter can be modified except in writing, signed by both parties. Both the Board of Finance and Selectmen have asked him to appear on multiple occasions. He hasn’t appeared before either one since December.

In May the Board of Finance chair said he would “take the position that [the consultant] breached his contract,” and a selectman called the refusal [to appear] “unprofessional.” The first selectman said publicly that appearing was no longer part of his contract, and offered no document to support that statement. I asked the Town Clerk’s office for any amendment to the original agreement. The answer I got on May 20: “There are no other documents that can be found.” On May 26, I put all of this in writing to every member of both boards and to Corporation Counsel, quoting the clauses, and asked for a written opinion on whether the original agreement’s terms still apply and a public response by June 30. Crickets.

So either the contract stands as written and the public statement doesn’t match it, or it was changed in a way the contract itself forbids. Which is it? If there is a third option, the Town has yet to produce it. In that same letter I offered $1,500 toward the cost of getting the consultant in front of the board. Transparency should not have a price tag, but I was happy to help remove that excuse. Four months later there has been no opinion, no response and no appearance.

• The engagement letter calls the firm an LLC on one page and an LLP on another, and the 11 invoices arrived on three different templates under two different names. Why would a firm this size bill the same client three different ways? The copies of the engagement letter and Rider I obtained also carry no Town official’s signature. I’ve asked for an executed version. Does one even exist?

Audit Deadlines

• The FY25 audit was due to the state Dec. 31, 2025.¹ Then it was pushed to Jan. 31, 2026. Then March. In May, the CFO said the auditors could guarantee June 30 only if everything was delivered by May 31. If the consultant’s primary work was finished April 15, what was still being delivered in May? PKF billed 39 hours of his time that month. On June 15 the reconciliation was still “in progress.” June 30 was the state-approved extension deadline. Now we’re told it should be done by Sept. 30… each date has been announced with confidence, but none of them have been met. What were those dates based on? Through all of it, members of both boards said they understood the division of labor: the consultant on FY25, the CFO on FY26. Now the CFO says her work on FY25 was “always an expectation,” and the FY26 budget-to-actuals the Board of Finance has asked for still haven’t been produced.

• The CFO’s words in May about missing the June 30 deadline: “The state isn’t going to do anything.” Was that now the Town’s plan?

Answering to the Boards

• The Board of Finance chair has asked for FY26 budget-to-actuals every week for two months. That’s not new. In January the CFO couldn’t provide budget-to-actuals for her own department when the Board of Selectmen asked. On Sept. 8 the Board of Selectmen got FY26 numbers on paper at the meeting, produced only that afternoon, and as of Sept. 16 that document still wasn’t on the town website. If the consultant’s primary work was finished in April and the CFO has been focused on FY26 ever since, those numbers should exist. Why can’t they be produced before a meeting instead of handed out during one? What is causing the delay?

• Meanwhile an unfinished draft of the FY25 audit has been uploaded on EMMA, the public bond disclosure site, since Sept. 1. Was either board told? Nothing was reported publicly at either the Board of Finance or Board of Selectmen.

• The same difficulty getting answers extends to the town attorney. Town Counsel’s own line came in about $125,000 over budget in FY25. The Board of Finance chair says the firm has refused to send him its analysis of whether the Board of Selectmen can move $1,300,329 between departments without Board of Finance approval, which is what the Selectmen did on July 27 along with $233,243 in charter expenditure authority; his first meeting with them is scheduled for Sept. 18. 

Process and Procedure Inconsistencies

• In March, the Selectmen voted unanimously to ask the Board of Finance to approve $330,000 from the Charter Reserve for a dump truck, and the Board of Finance did. In July, the Selectmen moved $1,300,329 between departments on their own, citing a legal memo from Town Counsel that says getting approval from the Board of Finance isn’t needed. Same two boards, four months apart. Which rule applies? 

• That legal memo was requested by the first selectman and the CFO at least a month before either board was told there were overages to transfer. Asked why, the first selectman said she consulted counsel to confirm “past practice” and did not recall who raised the question. 

It isn’t the firm’s first time on this question. In February 2025 the same firm told Weston’s Board of Finance that year-end transfers need their approval. In June 2026, it told Wilton no Board of Finance approval is needed. The difference is that Weston’s charter names the Board of Finance and Wilton’s is silent. But Wilton’s charter also gives the Board of Finance every power the state statutes give boards of finance, “except to the extent limited by this Charter.” The memo’s own premise is that the charter is silent. Silent means not limited. So which board holds the statutory transfer power? Weston’s finance board spent six months trying to get the attorneys into a public meeting, and one member asked why they were “readily available” in Wilton but not in Weston. Nineteen months later, Wilton’s Board of Finance chair can’t get a memo. Why?

• On July 20, the CFO told the Board of Selectmen, “I’m going to need both boards to vote to move the Charter Reserve” to cover budget overages in FY25. A week later a $380,000 medical reserve drawdown was found, the $310,804 overage became a $70,000 surplus, and no Charter Reserve vote was needed. Who found the $380,000, what supports it, and has anyone outside the Finance Department reviewed it?

• One more. Page 2 of PKF’s own engagement letter offers to conduct the Finance Department process review. The first selectman suggested taking them up on it in November and again in January. Who would hire a vendor to review its own bills?

Answering Questions

On Jan. 20, I put 15 questions on the record at a Board of Selectmen meeting. On May 26, I wrote to every member of both boards, copied the first selectman and Town Counsel. GMW asked this week with a deadline. Three rounds of questions since January. How many does it take to get a written answer?

I run a business. If my finance team went two months without producing monthly actuals, I’d be out of business.

I’m a taxpayer with a young family. My kids inherit this. Wilton carries an Aaa bond rating and tens of millions in outstanding debt. Rating agencies read EMMA, and a late audit with unexplained numbers is exactly what they downgrade over. A lack of confidence in current numbers after a late audit filing can also influence a downgrade. That bill goes to every household in town, over something that is preventable if it’s communicated and acted on with transparency.

Nobody needs to resign to fix this, as long as we can get direct answers. To date I’m confused why the numbers can’t be released. So, directly, to the Board of Finance and the Board of Selectmen:

1. What exactly was delivered on April 15, what were the 87 hours billed afterward for, and if the engagement has ended, when was the 30-day written notice the Rider requires given?
2. How much has PKF billed, how much has the Town paid, how much is withheld, and who approved each invoice?
3. Who agreed to reduce the discount PKF was giving to Wilton from 7% to 3% in January, and where is that documented?
4. Did either board ever vote to appropriate the money paid to PKF in FY2026?
5. Who found the $380,000, what supports it, and has anyone outside the Finance Department reviewed it?
6. Charter § C-16(C) requires written notice to the Board of Finance and the Treasurer within 14 days of each excess expenditure. For FY25, was any such notice given to both Boards, and if so, on what date?
7. Has the state Office of Policy and Management referred Wilton to the Municipal Finance Advisory Commission, or assessed a penalty, for missing the June 30 deadline to submit a completed FY25 audit?
8. If the FY25 work was complete in April, why haven’t FY26 budget-to-actuals been produced? When will you provide them, and when will the Sept. 8 handout provided to the selectmen be posted for the public to see?
9. Will the Board of Finance commission an independent, agreed-upon procedures review of the PKF engagement, obtain its own written opinion on transfer approval, and release Town Counsel’s analysis? And will any process review be done by a firm other than PKF?

Wilton taxpayers deserve transparency and answers to all these questions, with supporting documents, before Sept. 30, the latest audit “completion date” the Town has given.

In good faith,

Joshua Kopac