Wilton’s Board of Selectmen (BOS) held a special meeting Monday night, Feb. 26 to continue its work on the FY 2025 budget proposal.
First Selectman Toni Boucher indicated that the selectmen would be likely to reach a final budget request lower than they initially expected, having found some ways to bring the 7% year-over-year increase seen in an early budget draft down to a 5% increase or less.
The selectmen continued their scrutiny of the budget in a Q&A format, sifting through numerous pages of detail on the proposed budget.
The questions were submitted by each of the selectmen over the course of recent weeks as they studied the draft budget line by line. The answers were provided in writing by Town Administrator Matt Knickerbocker and Chief Financial Officer Dawn Norton.
Knickerbocker thanked the selectmen for their thoughtful questions and revealed that the probing had resulted in some fine-tuning.
“Let me just say it’s still a work in progress,” Knickerbocker told the selectmen. “I want you to know your questions did lead directly to review of several departments and we found some more savings.”
Knickerbocker also explained that a number of budget line items still need “massaging” — particularly on the operating capital side of the budget.
The meeting discussion went beyond the granular details to include Boucher’s broader views on the Town budget. She didn’t sugar-coat her comments.
“This year, of course, there’s not going to be a reduction in taxes, and there’s certainly not going to be a decade of 1% or 2% increases, because the situation we find ourselves in is really unprecedented,” she said, citing the impact of the revaluation as well as the facility needs assessment for Town-owned buildings and schools, among other budget challenges.
“What people are most concerned about is how high are their taxes going to go up this year,” Boucher continued.
When asked by Selectman Ross Tartell about her future outlook, Boucher took a long view.
“I’ve been through many cycles in Wilton,” she said. “Having had several years of very low tax increases in our Town has gotten people thinking that’s the norm. It really isn’t the norm. It varies depending on where we find ourselves in an economic cycle.”
“I would anticipate this year, and maybe a little bit of next, might be a high point and I think things might settle down and moderate after that,” she said. “I’m steeling up for a difficult tax year, this year and next, but I’m hopeful [about where] we’re heading.”
Next Steps on the BOS Budget
The board will have one more opportunity to meet (March 5) in order to finalize the budget and vote to formally adopt it. Then, the BOS budget request would be presented to the Board of Finance for review. The two boards will have a joint meeting on March 13.
Town Hall Campus Preview
A major portion of the Feb. 26 BOS meeting was dedicated to a presentation by the lead architects from Marx|Okubo, the consulting firm that led the needs assessment for municipal facilities.
With officials from Wilton’s DPW also in attendance, the consultants presented ideas for potentially expanding multiple facilities on Town Hall campus, including:
- A two-story, 5,500-sq.ft addition to Town Hall, plus rehabilitation of the existing building
- A 4,400-sq.ft addition to the Fire Headquarters
- A 3,500-sq.ft. addition to the Public Works garage plus interior office space for DPW
- Relocation of the Animal Shelter to a new facility constructed alongside the Public Works garage building
GMW has requested a copy of the presentation, which was not posted along with the meeting agenda, and will be reporting on this in more detail in a separate story.