After its inaugural meeting two weeks ago (July 10), the Town and School Needs Assessment Priorities Committee (TSNAP) gathered for the second time yesterday (July 24) in its endeavor to “analyze the needs assessments of the Town’s school and municipal buildings and to serve as an advisory board to the Board of Selectmen with regard to setting of project priorities.”
Town Hall Due Diligence
The committee picked up its discussion with the question of the fundamental approach to address the needs at Town Hall: renovate and expand, or tear down and rebuild?
Assistant DPW Director/Facilities Manger Jeff Pardo told the group about an RFP for an architectural/engineering consulting project as “‘due diligence” on that key question.
The proposed study — which is expected to cost under $25,000 — would explore two renovation/expansion scenarios and a teardown alternative.
Committee members raised questions about the assumptions and scope of the study as outlined in the RFP.
“Do we know what our space requirements are, and what they’re going to be over the next few years?” asked committee member Rudy Escalante.
Pardo noted that the Town Hall space needs identified to date have been based on the requests and input of the various department heads.
Committee member Rich Santosky seemed dubious of, among other things, requests from department heads that were not scrutinized at a higher level.
“Has anyone from the Town looked at that and said, I agree with your assessment of what your department needs in the future, or are we just taking their requests and moving them forward?” Santosky asked.
Santosky said his approach would be to look at numbers of full-time equivalent employees (FTE) on a current and expected future basis.
“Without that, how is anyone doing a square-foot needs assessment?” he asked, adding that even rough calculations using headcount data “on the back of a napkin” could be helpful in assessing the “order of magnitude” of the needs more critically.
First Selectman Toni Boucher indicated that predicting future headcount would be difficult, and potentially could involve adding, reducing or “right-sizing” staff levels.
“We can’t really assess exactly how many new employees we will have, but I do anticipate that if the Town grows, so will Town staffing needs grow,” Boucher said. “However, along with that is also a very strong effort to modernize and add technology to mitigate some of the additional labor-intensive processes.”
Committee chair Patti Temple also said she was frustrated that the needs assessment reports currently do not reflect headcounts, which she said would be important “so that the proper decisions can be made on the size, design and efficiency of the interior building.”
“We need to build a building that will last for the next 40 to 50 years, so we have to accommodate for future growth,” Temple said. “It’s critical that we have numbers for future growth in the [RFP] to make sure the firms have the information they need to plan out a building for the next 40 or 50 years.”
Town Administrator Matt Knickerbocker brought the discussion back to the more immediate needs at Town Hall.
“The primary driver right now is not focused on future needs. Right now, we have offices that are barely functional, they’re so overcrowded,” Knickerbocker said, adding that many workspaces are “makeshift” and even “in closets.”
Knickerbocker said his primary goal is “to address our current needs and make a more efficient workspace that produces better work, and better volume of work, than the space we have available right now.”
Knickerbocker said he would be hard-pressed today to imagine any significant additions to staffing needs in the future. As an example, he said five years ago, no one anticipated that additional engineering staff would be on board today.
“I think this committee’s recommendations to the Board [of Selectmen] really have to be driven more on making our space more efficient for the people who work here today,” he said.
Like Boucher, Knickerbocker also referred to technology changes that could reduce some staff needs.
“I don’t see us trying to build for a future with more people in the space. I see us trying to recreate the space we have,” Knickerbocker said.
DPW Director/Town Engineer Frank Smeriglio also focused the committee on FY 2026 priorities.
“Two weeks ago we spent time talking about what really is the goal of this committee,” Smeriglio noted. “Really the goal of this committee, I think, is by December or January to [have] a recommendation to the Board of Selectman and Board of Finance” for “immediate target goals” for FY’26.
Temple asked to “take a step back” to consider whether any of the projects to address the immediate needs at Town Hall in the current fiscal year — including new windows and other repairs already approved by voters for bonding at a cost of $1,585,000 — “would ultimately be re-done” if a larger overhaul of the building were undertaken.
Pardo admitted many of the FY’25 fixes could indeed have a short life if the building is altered or re-built within a relatively short timeframe. His response illustrated the quandary the Town is in — faced with immediate, urgent building needs for the health and safety of employees and visitors, while also planning for longterm solutions.
“In my mind, seeing how long it takes major projects to get approved, I think you have to do this work, because it could be six or eight years before something gets approved,” he said. “You’ve seen the conditions. You’ve got to do something.”
Boucher noted any major project such as an addition at Town Hall would always come with a risk of being rejected by voters at an Annual Town Meeting.
“And even if it does [pass], it may take years to get there,” she said. In the meantime, she said, employees are suffering.
Public Comment
Resident Sara Curtis offered some comments to the committee. She echoed the need to be sure the RFP for the Town Hall due diligence is designed to give the committee the insights it needs to make recommendations most effectively. She also hopes to hear more of a broader “vision” for Town Hall campus and how any recommended projects would fit into that vision.
Next Steps
Based in part on the expectation that the consultant’s report would not be available until late September, Temple told the committee members their work would likely extend until at least mid-October — somewhat longer than Boucher initially envisioned for the effort. Selectman Bas Nabulsi reminded the group that the members of the Board of Selectmen intended to discuss their expectations for the committee’s mission at the next BOS meeting, and “greater clarity” on the timeline would be provided then.
Committee members will make site visits next week. Details will be posted on the Town website. Members of the public may also attend.
The committee agreed to assemble more specific data on employee headcounts over time as input for the committee’s calculations and deliberations on priorities.
The committee’s next meeting will be Wednesday, Aug. 31.
It’s an iconic Wilton landmark.
Renovate, refurbish, BUT DO NOT TEAR DOWN!
Every time I go to town hall the place is dead. I’m surprised to hear about ‘overcrowding’. What I think they ought to do is look into investing in technology and work at home options. Do we really still need someone there to sell us paper tickets to the dump? How many roles at town hall that don’t require face to face engagement can be moved to a work from home basis. It would likely enable us to offer better compensation and have vastly improved technology, at a lower cost with lower maintenance.