Town Sees Potential Runaway Legal Costs

Over the past year, First Selectman Toni Boucher has made numerous references to additional legal costs that have impacted the town, including those associated with union and contract negotiations, lawsuits and grievances, and employment settlements.

In the four months since Fiscal Year 2026 began on July 1, the town has witnessed more than $150,000 in legal costs above and beyond the $9,250 average monthly retainer dedicated to the longtime town counsel Berchem Moses PC. 

In Fiscal 2025, additional non-retainer fees were $100,000.

Over at least the past two years, the retainer for Berchem Moses has held steady at $111,000.

“The Berchem Moses team has several specialists who cover all of our various legal needs,” Town Administrator Matt Knickerbocker explained, making them the only legal firm contracted with Wilton. “These include general law, municipal law, labor law, land use law, property assessing and taxation and contract law.”

Overall, Wilton is on par to expend $400,000 this fiscal year above the amount of the dedicated retainer already budgeted. The first three months show a total of non-retainer expenditures of $105,360.23:

• July: $38,692.19
• August: $33,681.03
• September: $32,987.01

Higher still, October 2025 saw $45,489.90 expended above the $9,250 allocated retainer fee.

“We should absolutely keep our eye on it,” said Selectwoman Kim Healy, who will officially be joining the Board of Finance next month.

“Knowing that the costs have escalated over the past few years, we need to be on top of it, do our due diligence, and review it on a regular basis,” she said. “The Board of Selectmen just definitely needs to take a more proactive approach to oversight over all the budget.”

According to a spreadsheet of the town’s legal expenses that Knickerbocker has been recording since April, several areas and items have accounted for large increases over the past seven months:

• Ambler Farm Lease: Boucher has repeatedly cited legal work on the Ambler Farm lease, which is still in negotiations between the Town and Friends of Ambler Farm, as a particularly costly endeavor. Since April, Berchem Moses has charged $43,778.22 for work on the lease beyond its retainer.

• Employment/HR: There was $24,007.50 spent by the town in additional legal fees for the official separation of former Chief Financial Officer Dawn Norton from her contract and commitment to Wilton.

• Contract Negotiations: Contract negotiations with different employee unions have also accounted for significant costs above the town’s retainer. Knickerbocker said he believed that, because of these negotiations, the last several months were running higher and that it didn’t necessarily mean these higher additional legal costs would sustain at this level. “In my experience, in negotiating public sector bargaining agreements for over 25 years, these costs are not atypical,” Knickerbocker added.
  • Year-to-date, $15,920 has been spent on negotiations with the police union.
  • Negotiations with Fire IFF has cost $10,981.50 since April.
  • Over the past six months, negotiations with the Teamsters union, representing the town’s highway and DPW workers, has cost $21,013.

• Litigation: Litigation has also played a role in additional legal costs for the town.
  • An ongoing case involving a complaint from Jennifer Malloy to the Freedom of Information Commission has amounted to $17,941 in additional legal costs since April.
  • Dog appeals, including a suit brought by Erasmo Farinas to prevent his two dogs from being put down after the Town impounded them for biting multiple people; that suit has amounted to $10,151.80 in additional legal costs to the town since April.
  • A conflict between The Lake Club, Inc., and the Planning and Zoning Commission has cost the town $11,871.20 in additional legal costs since April.
  • There was $14,156.40 spent in additional legal costs between April and July, 2025, on a case between the town and Michael Richard Powers, a former candidate for first selectman who previously brought an unsuccessful suit against the town in 2019, seeking to nullify votes made by the Board of Selectmen. The current case involves an injunction filed by Powers against a possible BOS vote on the Ambler Farm lease.

• Tax appeals: There were also additional legal costs that went toward tax appeals, including $7,584 in May, $5,280 in June, and $8,275 for the first three months of Fiscal ’26.

• Thunder Lake Rd.: Other larger costs include additional legal fees related to Thunder Lake Road, which has cost $11,435 in the first three months of Fiscal ’26, and a total of $4,421.10 for the two months before.

• Wetlands enforcement cost the town an additional $6,218.10 for May and June of 2025.

Board of Finance Chair Matt Raimondi noted that the interim CFO is scheduled to present the budget-to-actuals data to the BOF at its next meeting in December.

“The BOF will dig into the numbers and any variances,” Raimondi said, “and will discuss those drivers with the town administration.”