The Board of Selectmen may have found a solution for keeping the proposed FY 2026 town budget near a 3% increase, following a sometimes-tumultuous, sometimes-confusing special meeting it held on Tuesday, Feb. 25.
The often tense, over-two-hour meeting was the latest in a series of budget review discussions held by the selectmen in the past few weeks, which have been marked by inconsistent financial figures, unclear projections, and a lack of cohesive communication among town officials.
First Selectman Toni Boucher initially presented the selectmen with a budget of $39.5 million, representing a 10.39% year-over-year increase; subsequent meetings called into question the way the budget numbers were presented; and the selectmen continued to grapple with the numbers as more discussions were scheduled.
However, as of Tuesday, it appears the BOS has reduced its proposed FY 2026 budget to around $37 million, although the exact number and budget increase aren’t clear, owing to confusion between the different iterations of the budget held by different town officials.
Much of the solution came in the form of a state-reimbursement windfall for the Miller-Driscoll School renovation project of several years ago in the amount of $918,879, which the BOS can now use to reduce its capital operating budget, if it so chooses.
Boucher opened Tuesday night’s meeting stating that she, Knickerbocker and Wilton’s Chief Financial Officer Dawn Norton had whittled down the budget numbers to a 4.83% increase, having worked in the $919,000 state reimbursement while also adding in a 3% increase to the Wilton Library budget, approximately $90,000.
Boucher said they’d arrived at this new iteration of the budget by reducing some of the costs for benefits, noting a $229,000 reduction to police pension benefits and $51,000 to fire pension benefits. Boucher explained the town is currently contributing 107% to those funds.
The revised budget and details about the windfall were only shared with the BOS at the beginning of Tuesday’s meeting.
“It’s hard to know where to start,” Selectman Bas Nabulsi said. “There’s so much new information.”
Boucher also made an official announcement that the town’s Grand List has increased by 1.32% for 2024, which she said should help the BOF reduce the tax rate.
Things Get Heated
Emotions ran high at points on Tuesday night, with Selectwoman Kim Healy and Boucher — both Republicans — butting heads on not just the budget items up for discussion, but the messages around them being disseminated to Wilton residents.
In particular, Healy has questioned whether the Fire Department‘s call-volume data justified hiring two new firefighters, in part because she had not received the details on the data that she had requested.
Last Thursday, Feb. 20, the BOS saw a revised budget model from Town Administrator Matt Knickerbocker, which showed the impact of removing the firefighter positions, which amounts to a savings of $216,000.
More than one BOS member was unconvinced of whether the positions were absolutely needed, but in its latest budget documents — which were not made available to the public, and which BOS members only received at the beginning of Tuesday’s meeting — they had been added back in.
“I’m upset that the firemen are back in there because I think we agreed that we were not gonna put them in, that there was not enough data,” she said. “I do not believe there was enough data.”
Boucher interrupted Healy, stating, “It’s in the budget that you’re presented with.”
Ironically, when Boucher first brought the BOS a budget representing a 10.39% increase, she told its members that she didn’t know how to reduce it any farther and that, if they wanted to make cuts, the four BOS members would have to make them themselves.
“We took them out,” Healy said of the firefighter positions. “Why are they back in?”
Boucher said that not everyone agreed to cut them.
“If the four of you want to take those two firemen out, you can do it with your four votes,” Boucher said. “You will not get my vote because I do not believe that putting the public at risk when things have changed so dramatically — “
“That is really unfair,” an upset Healy interrupted, “to then blame us and make us be — You’re literally out there telling the public that they’re going to be unsafe because of a decision we are making. Okay, that is truly the most — That is so disrespectful.”
“No, it’s not coming from me,” Boucher said.
“It is coming from you. You said it yourself,” Healy said.
“It’s coming from the fire department and their presentation (and) data,” Boucher said.
“Then they should have provided the data, because they did not,” Healy said.
Boucher asked if she wanted the fire officials to come back and do another presentation.
“Yes, I asked them already. That’s where we left it,” she said, with Knickerbocker stating later in the meeting that fire department officials would be in attendance on Thursday, Feb. 27, to answer additional questions.
Healy noted again that the BOS should not have been brought a budget that showed a 10.39% increase to begin with, stating that it should have been “scrubbed” before coming to them.
“This budget that we were given at 10% we should never have seen … No offense,” she added to Boucher.
Searching for Reductions
As they continued to search budget areas for potential adjustments, Nabulsi said he saw a possible reduction by moving $330,000 earmarked for an annual request from the Department of Public Works for several items — including a new large dump truck, sander and plow — along with a DPW utility van for $65,000, and a transfer station truck for $105,000, to capital bonding.
Nabulsi said that when everything was added together, it came out to a 3.2% increase in the proposed budget over the current year.
Asked to check Nabulsi’s numbers, Norton said, “I get just slightly under the 3%, if I take all of that.”
On related matters, some members of the BOS would like to see certain school-related items moved off their budget, including a $275,000 line item for miscellaneous Board of Education costs.
“We should not be responsible for those,” Healy said, suggesting they follow up with the BOF as soon as possible to see if a joint facility repair fund that has been discussed could be implemented in time for this year’s budget.
“We already allocated them $250,000 in infrastructure funds in November,” she said, noting it was the BOF that had suggested the idea of a joint fund.
Boucher bucked at the point.
“You want to now acquiesce your authority to other boards?” she asked.
But others supported the idea, including Selectman Ross Tartell.
“If you could set it up with proper oversight,” he said, it could be a beneficial arrangement, as the money earmarked for the repairs on school facilities would not directly come out of the BOS operating budget.
Tartell also said he wanted the BOF to be aware of the work the BOS was doing, in particular cutting items that “don’t belong being cut.”
“I’ve never seen us cut the way we have cut … We’re through the bone … If I sound upset, I am, because I haven’t seen anything like this in my entire time on the Board of Selectmen,” he said.
The BOS is scheduled to meet again on Thursday, Feb. 27, at which point its members hope to vote on an exact budget number, which will be presented to the Board of Finance for consideration on Wednesday, March 5 at a joint meeting of the boards.
I guess I don’t fully understand how the rules for public sector budgets differ so much from the private sector. It was literally NEVER hard to understand budgets. Last years budget, actual spend, and next years budget. There was no moving operating costs to capital or the other shenanigans. Hard to believe we still operate like this.