Town Administrator Matt Knickerbocker spoke with GMW on Thursday, Aug. 7 to provide his take on what led up to the discovery of former CFO Dawn Norton‘s other full-time job in Wyoming, Norton’s subsequent resignation, and events since then.[This conversation has been edited for clarity and brevity, but content has not been changed.]
[Editor’s note: This interview refers to details of notifications and letters of resignation that Norton submitted to town officials. For a closer look at the timeline and questions around those documents, plus the Town’s official statement, read our other story published today, “Town Hall Statement: ‘Shocked and Disappointed’ by CFO Norton’s Departure — Yet Discrepancies & New Info from Wyoming Raise More Questions“.]
GOOD Morning Wilton: Do you recall seeing [the April 7 letter Norton sent to First Selectman Toni Boucher stating she “may” take on additional employment]? Did you ask [Norton] what was going on? Did you say, “What are you thinking about?” Did you have any kind of conversation with her when she sent that on April 7?
Matt Knickerbocker: I did not. I do recall that I got it. Per the terms of her [job offer] agreement she was to notify Toni. Previous conversations about outside employment were centered on things like special projects…it’s not unusual … where one town might say, “Hey, can I use your assessor for a little bit while we have this vacancy?” Or “…your building official?” So my assumption at the time, if I read and even paid attention to it was, that’s what that was. Like, “I’m going to be doing some special projects here and there.” And I didn’t give that a second thought, because we had discussed those things before.
But let me stress, following that, at no point did she, either verbally or in writing, tell me, “I have accepted another job.” There was no further notice beyond that thing of April 7.
GMW: I’m gonna play devil’s advocate. She’s the CFO and treasurer of the town. I would think it might pique some interest if she said, “I may be looking for more work. So at no point did you or Toni talk to her and say, “Did you ever do anything?” or “What are you thinking?” Nobody ever followed up with her about what that notice meant?
Knickerbocker: Well, I cannot speak for Toni, but I didn’t, because, for the reasons I stated — we had had conversations about helping out other towns. And she said, ‘may’, not ‘will,’ not ‘have.’ it was ‘may’, so no, I did not give that any further thought at that point.
GMW: At any point between April and now, before all of this started, when [Norton] was out in Wyoming, did she offer a letter of resignation or any kind of resignation?
Knickerbocker: No, no offer of a letter, no verbal report that, you know, “I’m going to be resigning soon.” That was not discussed at all.
GMW: I’ve heard a report that [Norton], on at least more than one occasion, said she wanted to resign, and that [resignation] was refused, and she was told, “No, you can’t resign. We need you.” Is that untrue?
Knickerbocker: Well, it certainly was not me.
GMW: [In her interview with GMW, Norton] was specific about, “over the last couple of months, [Knickerbocker and I] had been actively working to put a transition together.”
Knickerbocker: That’s not entirely true. I was working on something completely, completely different. I think she’s trying to communicate that I was looking for her replacement, and that’s not true at all.
What we talked about after the audit and the controversy about the material weakness, I had proposed to her and to Toni that we bring in (by coincidence) somebody from another town who is a longtime, experienced municipal CFO… I’d even written a proposal to give to Toni some weeks ago, or a couple, maybe more than a month ago, was to have this person come in and analyze our department and try to make some recommendations to us on how to improve the support for the employees that are there, and make sure that our chart of accounts is set up properly, that people are able to do the things they need to do. Do we have the right staff members with the right talents in the right position? I was working to see if Toni would support, or if the Board of Selectmen would support having this consultant come in. That’s what we [Norton and I] were working on. I had not initiated a search, saying, “Okay, now we need to find a new CFO.”
GMW: Given all the attention and issues around the Finance Department and communication [at Town Hall] and this discussion, I’ve heard both the Board of Selectmen and Board of Finance say that Dawn is overworked. Now you find out that she’s been also working full time for another town. What do you have to say about that? In terms of any impact it’s had on town processes, town efficiency, any errors… how concerned are you about what that has meant for Wilton?
Knickerbocker: Well, I’m not going to defend her actions because we’ve spoken to our town attorneys just to make sure we’re on solid ground, and they all agree: no, there is no provision, there’s no implication, there’s no assumption, in any way, shape or form, that this one clause that’s in her agreement allows her to go out and get a second full-time job. That is just completely untenable.
But then I will say, and this is going to sound like I’m defending her a little bit, but they’re almost two different conversations. She was talking about being understaffed when we had three vacancies in the Finance Department, and she and [Wilton Controller] Tony DeFelice were both doing a tremendous amount of — I don’t want to say lower level, but you know — staff work that they shouldn’t have been doing. At that time, we did not have an [accounts payable] clerk, we didn’t have a finance manager, and we didn’t have the person who was doing the reconciliations. All three of those positions had been open for a long time, so Dawn, at that time, was practically working 20 hours a day, seven days a week, doing all the AP work by hand.
But here she is, to your point, this job and that job. So it does call into question the credibility claims. For sure, there’s no doubt about that.
GMW: When did [Norton] submit that first resignation letter and what was that supposed to be? And then why was it rescinded and then Norton sent the next one?
Knickerbocker: The first letter was sent on Monday afternoon, [Aug. 4], and was a result of me. Monday, I called [Norton] and I said, “Is this true? Are you the full-time administrator there [in Greybull]?” She did not say, “Well, yeah, I told you that.” There was a pause and she said, “Yes, it’s true. I’m a full-time administrator.” And I said, “Well, that’s a problem.” We talked a little bit more about it. And she said, “Will you want me to resign?” And I said, “I think you have to.”
Of course, we had very serious concerns about the audit coming up. We want to make sure that this audit goes well. So I went to Toni Boucher and explained it to her, first thing on Monday morning. I said, “Dawn’s going to resign, but what do you think about having her continue in a maybe a contract relationship, to have her continue working on the audit, because she’s part way through it. She’s got all the material, and she’s working with the audit firm on that.”
Toni readily agreed, and said, “Yes, we cannot jeopardize this audit.” So I called Dawn back and I said, “All right, this is how we’re going to proceed, if you’re willing to do that.” So she sent the first letter in. It says, “Kindly accept this letter. This letter is my notice of retirement for CFO effective upon a date to be established by mutual agreement.” Then it says, “I’m happy to support Wilton full capacity as long as it takes,” etc. She kind of forward dated to that, thinking, “Okay, I’ll keep working on the audit.”
At that time, we didn’t really understand that she had been appointed and it was actually fulfilling the role in the other town. We thought it looked initially like this is something that is just happening now, there’ll be an overlap.
GMW: Did she make it seem that [her appointment] had just happened recently?
Knickerbocker: Yeah, it kind of seemed that way. But then, very honestly, what precipitated us looking into this deeper was your article, because you found [the confirmation.] I gotta hand it to you.
When we read your article, that put the whole thing in a different light. Then we realized that this was more of a conflict of interest than we fully realized. I called her back and I said, “Well, thank you for the letter, but we have to rescind that offer. We need you to resign immediately.”
GMW: [Norton] attended Monday’s meeting (Aug. 4) via Zoom. At that point, it wasn’t concerning to you to have her in the meeting? Was there a thought that maybe she shouldn’t attend?
Knickerbocker: No. We didn’t really know the totality of what was going on. Remember, when I called her, she said, “I’ve taken this position.” I can’t remember how she phrased it, but my impression was, this was a little bit of side work, weekend work or something. At the time, we were still thinking that she would continue to work for us in some capacity to get through the audit. But that changed when we looked deeper, really realized how extensive it was, that this was not just a side gig.
GMW: Is there anything else you want to add?
Knickerbocker: I find the whole thing very sad that she’s found herself in this position. She is a good person. She is one of the hardest workers I’ve ever known. She would do anything for this town. I’m not going to speak for her, but I don’t believe she thinks that she did anything wrong. That her desire was to, as she transitioned to a new job, that she was perfectly willing to do anything she needed to help us with this audit and help us get set up with a new person when the time came. And maybe she thought we had those conversations. I can’t answer that. But they weren’t. I’m very saddened by the whole thing, because she was about as dedicated an employee as you could possibly have. She would work any number of hours, any number of days, do anything that was necessary. She was great to work with, and I’m personally very sorry that her career here is ending this way.