SPECIAL REPORT: Investigation Likely Sought in Unauthorized Distributions of Town Funds

A failure to get required Board of Selectmen approval to disburse some $300,000 in town funds two years in a row will likely prompt further investigation at Town Hall and is putting Town leadership in damage control mode amid finger-pointing and concerns about administrative procedures.

Conflicting statements made about the matter by town officials have also generated concerns from Wilton’s Board of Finance Chair Matt Raimondi, former First Selectwoman Lynne Vanderslice, and some current BOS members.

In January 2025, $302,562.02 was essentially disbursed by the town among dozens of Wilton residents as part of an Elderly Tax Relief initiative, which costs the town about $1.1 million each year in revenue that is not collected.

Based on town ordinance, qualifying residents receive a first credit in the summer, which traditionally amounts to around $750,000 in total. In 2019, that ordinance was amended to allow any remaining tax credit funds to be equitably disbursed among applicants, with official approval from either the BOS or its designee.

In 2022, as per the ordinance, that second credit was approved by the BOS and disbursed during Vanderslice’s administration.

A GOOD Morning Wilton investigation has revealed that, in contrast, not only was the second credit for 2024 disbursed in January 2025 without appropriate approval, but it was the second year in a row that credits were issued without authorization. Those payments occurred during current First Selectman Toni Boucher‘s administration, after Vanderslice left office.

“At our next regular meeting, I intend to call for a formal investigation, and it will be my position that the investigation be done by an independent entity,” Second Selectman Joshua Cole told GOOD Morning Wilton in an email this week.

“While the tax credit is important to many of our seniors, I’m extremely concerned that actions may have been taken absent appropriate authority,” Cole said, noting a lot of unanswered questions remained.

Inconsistent Explanations

Town Administrator Matt Knickerbocker told GMW on Thursday, Mar. 6, that he is taking full responsibility for the situation, but in earlier statements he originally deflected blame onto Vanderslice.

“Based on the previous year’s practice (2023) in which the second installment was approved and issued without a Board vote, staff believed the authorized designee was, in fact, the First Selectman,” Knickerbocker said when first asked about the issue.

“The outgoing First Selectman [Vanderslice] was aware that staff (who was newly hired and had not been involved the prior year [2022]) was preparing to process the second installment, per the ordinance, and made no mention of Board approval being required,” he said, adding, “It is possible that the outgoing First Selectman had intended to include it on an agenda and the matter simply slipped in the transition from the outgoing to the incoming administration.”

When she learned about Knickerbocker’s comments, Vanderslice sent an email to the other four members of the BOS this week outlining a timeline of events, vehemently denying any blame or role in disbursements that were approved after she left office.

“I hope to avoid having to publicly dispute comments made by Matt [Knickerbocker] or [First Selectman] Toni [Boucher],” she wrote, calling Knickerbocker’s earlier comments “inconsistent with my knowledge as it related to my time in office and inconsistent with recent statements and email exchanges [Knickerbocker] had with Matt Raimondi in November and December 2024.”

“In November 2024, Matt K. told Matt R. that while first selectwoman I gave several hundred thousand dollars in [2022] senior tax credits [disbursed in Jan. 2023] to residents without BOS approval and without informing the BOS,” she wrote. “He stated this as a concern and stated I violated the ordinance.”

Vanderslice also told the BOS members that Knickerbocker had told Raimondi he did not know the ordinance allowed for the second tax credit, something she corroborated with copies of emails she obtained through a FOIA request.

In a call with GMW, Raimondi confirmed Vanderslice’s comments, explaining that after he reached out to town CFO Dawn Norton with questions about the tax credit, Knickerbocker called him.

“I got a call from Matt Knickerbocker in which he levied an accusation against the former first selectwoman about authorizing a second transfer of [2022 senior tax credit] funds without the approval of the Board of Selectmen,” Raimondi said, noting it seemed out of her character to have done so.

“In my opinion, [Lynne] didn’t do anything wrong,” Raimondi told GMW, after looking closer into the matter and phoning Vanderslice directly.

He also said Knickerbocker himself seemed unfamiliar with the ordinance based on subsequent communication, and Raimondi invited him to make a presentation to the BOF on Dec. 10, 2024, explaining how the senior tax credit program worked.

Raimondi also was concerned when Knickerbocker informed him that a second tax credit had been issued for the current fiscal year.

“[Knickerbocker] thought a second payment had been sent, which was concerning because the Board of Selectmen had never voted on it [this year] … Conceptually I’m okay that it was sent out, but it was done incorrectly,” Raimondi said.

“I’m not sure anything nefarious was intended here,” Raimondi told GMW, but he believes Wilton residents need to know exactly what happened.

“I would want to understand where the procedural process broke down and make sure that we do things by the book in the future,” Raimondi added.

Things had been done ‘by the book’ for the 2022 tax credits, according to a review of the minutes of the Nov. 21, 2022 BOS meeting. With an annual deadline of Dec. 1 set by the ordinance on the matter, the BOS voted at that meeting to approve a January 2023 second credit disbursement.

The next year, however, as her time in office was winding down in November 2023, Vanderslice said she neglected to put the issue on the BOS agenda in time, so she believed no disbursement of 2023 second credits was made for January 2024 — something she regretted and took responsibility for.

“Ultimately the buck stops with me … Ultimately I’ve got to remember,” she told GMW. I had a lot going on in November and I forgot and I have felt terrible from that.”

She was, however, surprised to ultimately learn that the 2023 credits had gone out after she left office without BOS approval.

BOS Members Take Notice

Some members of the BOS were also surprised that credits have been issued without their approval or knowledge.

“I actually was very unhappy to know that [2024 credits] had been distributed without our knowledge,” Selectwoman Kim Healy said at the most recent BOS meeting on Mar. 3, 2025, before the board unanimously retroactively approved disbursement of the $302,562.02.

“I would request that we do a full review of our internal control reviews based on the fact that we’ve distributed $302,000 without our knowledge,” she said. “Not that I would say we were not going to want to do it, but we have to follow the rules and we have to be informed and vote on things that our ordinances tell us to do.”

When contacted by GMW, Healy said, “I have no further comment or knowledge other than what I said at the [Mar. 3, 2025] meeting … I suggested at our meeting that we should have an audit or at the very least a thorough internal control review to investigate what happened.”

Healy said she first learned about the disbursement at the Feb. 10, 2025 BOS meeting, when — just under three hours into the budget discussion — Selectman Ross Tartell raised the question of reducing that Elderly Tax Credit fund and referenced that the money had been disbursed that year.

“We didn’t vote on it,” Healy said. “We were supposed to vote on it.”

“That is correct,” Tartell said. “We have voted it in past years.”

When Healy asked how he knew about this, Tartell responded “that is my recollection” that it was mentioned at a previous BOS meeting, though he didn’t specify a date.

Tartell did not respond to GMW‘s requests for comments about the matter.

At a subsequent BOS meeting, Selectman Bas Nabulsi asked to have the item put on the Feb. 27, 2025, BOS meeting agenda for a vote to retroactively approve the disbursement.

But at the Feb. 27, 2025, meeting, the BOS had to table the vote because Knickerbocker did not have the number available of how much money had been disbursed in 2025 for the 2024 tax credit, stating he had been too busy with FY 2026 budget-related matters.

The issue was raised again and brought up for a vote on March 3, when Healy voiced her objections about how it had been handled. Despite her comment, neither Boucher nor Knickerbocker offered any explanation, nor did any other BOS member speak up to add any input. The motion to retroactively approve disbursement of 2024 credits passed unanimously.

When GMW asked Nabulsi this week when and how he first heard about the matter, and if he had any concerns related to it, Nabulsi said, “I have no comment outside the discussions that will take place at the BOS.”

Boucher’s Position

Boucher, who preferred to answer questions in a phone call rather than through email, told GMW on Thursday morning, Mar. 6, that she was also aware that the money had been distributed, but said it was a matter that she understood was handled internally by her staff.

“We did not have the background of how things were done previously,” she said, and placed some of the responsibility with the BOS members for not letting her know.

“The Board of Selectmen had been there for a few years more, of course, and didn’t always remember themselves or mention anything to us until oftentimes after the fact, so we’ve had to backtrack or adjust some of the procedural things we have,” she said.

Boucher said Knickerbocker’s understanding was that the first selectperson was the designee who would be responsible for approving the funds, even though Boucher said she took no part in the approval of the January 2024 disbursement of 2023 credits.

“My understanding is it was done this way previously,” she said, noting that Knickerbocker had been in his job a year before her election.

“He has come to me and apologized and said, ‘I gave you the wrong advice,'” Boucher said.

Asked if she should have been aware simply because it’s part of her duties as the town’s top elected official, she said, “Why should I have known this? That’s why I get advice from the town administrator and others on staff. I got my information and it was wrong.”

She noted that Hollie Rapp, Wilton’s manager of assessing and tax collection, was unfamiliar with past practices, pointing out that the way Wilton handles the tax credits is different than in other municipalities.

Asked whether she had any concerns about Knickerbocker’s guidance in general in his role as town administrator, Boucher said, “I do have some concerns about the accuracy of some of the advice I’ve been given, but on total you have to judge a person on the totality of the work that they’re doing.”

“How much he was involved in some of these past practices is something I’m going to look into more … I wasn’t there,” Boucher said, noting that Knickerbocker has subsequently had multiple conversations with Rapp regarding the issue.

Boucher described that she currently has a lot of things on her plate beyond her job as first selectman, including writing two books, and serving on the boards of two large institutions. But Boucher said she was urged by Vanderslice and others to take on this role.

“There’s a lot of things in my life,” she said, noting she has encouraged staff members to reach out directly to Vanderslice if they had questions about things.

Without directly naming Vanderslice, however, Boucher said she would never “second guess” anyone who came before or after her in this role.

Knickerbocker’s Explanation and Contradicting Statements

In a call with GMW late Thursday afternoon, March 6, Knickerbocker said he did not want to name any of his staff who were involved in this.

“You guys gotta lay it on me,” he said. “I should have fact checked. I didn’t do it. I accepted that they were doing what they were supposed to do. It’s not on them.”

He attributed the matter to assumptions and miscommunications that snowballed.

“At no time did I ever say that Lynne Vanderslice was responsible for anything that went wrong on this,” Knickerbocker said, challenging Raimondi and Vanderslice’s accounts (and contradicting his earlier statements to GMW).

“That is absolutely not true, not true whatsoever,” he said, expressing unhappiness that Raimondi was asked to comment on this.

“That was a misinterpretation of a comment that I made many months later when we were going over budget stuff and I questioned the ordinance, not Lynne Vanderslice at all,” Knickerbocker said.

Knickerbocker said no laws were broken, as it was all based on a misunderstanding of the ordinance, and that the retroactive approval was the proper course of action in correcting it.

Thursday afternoon, Knickerbocker also sent a lengthy written statement to GMW, and asked that any previous comments be retracted, despite any conflicting explanations he had made to either the BOS or GMW previously.

In his written statement, Knickerbocker called the issuance of second tax credits without BOS approval an error, due to “internal miscommunication” and ‘erroneous assumptions’ that caused the errors to go undetected.

Despite telling Matt Raimondi in a December 2024 email that he was unfamiliar with the provisions in the ordinance, Knickerbocker’s statement to GMW said the erroneous issuing of tax credits in January 2023 and January 2024 was due in part to staff’s understanding of the ordinance.

“It was also assumed, erroneously, that the credits could be issued under the authority of the First Selectman alone, as the language in the ordinance requires approval of the Board of Selectman or its designee. This caused staff to proceed with issuing the credits in January 2024. The error was not initially detected and was repeated again in January of 2025 when staff followed the same procedure as the prior year,” he wrote.

Knickerbocker’s written statement reiterated that Boucher and Vanderslice were not responsible for any credits erroneously issued.

“It is important to clearly state that neither former First Selectwoman Lynne Vanderslice nor First Selectman Toni Boucher had knowledge that staff was proceeding with issuing the second credits in 2024 and 2025, nor had they given approval, even though staff believed erroneously that they did.

“As the immediate supervisor of all of the staff members involved, it was my responsibility, not the First Selectmen, and not the staff members involved, who believed they were simply doing what was expected of them, to catch and correct any miscommunication or misunderstandings and prevent the errors, which clearly, I did not do. I accept that responsibility and deeply regret the error.”

He also stated that he is “working to improve internal controls as well as communication” to prevent anything similar from happening in the future, and that just as the unapproved 2024 credits were corrected with a BOS vote, the same will be done to correct the unauthorized 2023 credits at the next BOS meeting.

Whether any of that satisfies Vanderslice in the quest to correct the record and ensure the town is protected is up in the air.

“I don’t know the facts because there are too many inconsistencies of what has been said,” Vanderslice said. “I hope the facts will come out.”

Editor’s note: the story has been updated to further clarify timeline details around concerns BOF Chair Matt Raimondi had regarding his conversation with Matt Knickerbocker about Lynne Vanderslice‘s correct procedures in 2022, and concerns that procedures had not been followed correctly in 2024.

Correction: the story has been updated to correct an earlier version that misstated who was eligible to receive second tax credits. All qualified residents are eligible to receive the second round of tax credits.