Prioritizing $213 Million: Will Roads, Roofs and Ambler Farm Be TSNAP Committee’s Top Recommendations for Wilton’s FY’26 Capital Spending?

The Town and Schools Needs Assessment Priorities Committee (TSNAP) met Wednesday afternoon (Oct. 9) to continue its work preparing to make recommendations to the Board of Selectmen for capital spending priorities across Town facilities.

The meeting began with a review by Parks and Recreation Department Director Steve Pierce about the various needs at Comstock Community Center and Merwin Meadows.

TSNAP Chair Patti Temple, who also serves as president of Friends of Ambler Farm, briefed the committee on Ambler Farm‘s needs, highlighting the Raymond-Ambler House and the Yellow House.

The committee has spent recent months delving into the needs of various other municipal facilities and school buildings. Now that the members have gained a full understanding of the depth and breadth of all the needs, they seem poised to begin their task of deliberating on the recommendations they will make to the Board of Selectmen for the next budget cycle.

DPW Staff Reveal Their Priorities

For the first time since the committee was formed, a prioritized list of specific projects has emerged for consideration.

DPW Director/Town Engineer Frank Smeriglio and Assistant DPW Director/Facilities Manager Jeff Pardo shared a prioritized project list — from DPW’s perspective — for their fellow committee members to consider for FY 2026 projects.

Smeriglio and Pardo emphasized the list was a starting point for the committee to discuss and potentially reorder based on members’ beliefs about which needs are most critical to address in the next fiscal year.

DPW’s preliminary working list prioritized necessary road work ($2 million), roof work ($2 million), and Ambler Farm building needs ($1.95 million); followed by 10 other projects, listed in priority order (below). The total cost of all the proposed items for FY’26 is estimated at $11.4 million.

While the $11.4 million struck some members as high for any given year, it is a small fraction of the $160-$213 million in identified needs that have been estimated over a 10-15-year planning horizon.

Committee member and BOF Chair Matt Raimondi reacted to the cost with great concern, pointing out it would result in a “substantial increase” in the Town’s debt service and almost certainly require a mill rate increase.

Under the “affordability framework” Raimondi proposed to the committee last month, any borrowing over $6.1 million would result in a debt service increase.

“These are all worthwhile, [but] I wonder if maybe there’s some way to stagger this out, to not give the taxpayers such a hit in two years when this comes to bonding,” Raimondi said.

Boucher urged the committee to focus on discerning which projects are of greatest importance, especially for health and safety issues. She alluded to the Town-owned, historic Gilbert & Bennett building, where the consequences of deferred repairs are now unsafe conditions that recently forced the building to close.

Boucher said she wants to see the most pressing needs prioritized, and let the cost and affordability issues be addressed in the budget process — after the Board of Selectmen has the opportunity to “make the case” for recommended initiatives, voters will ultimately decide which bonding referendums they will support.

While Raimondi initially said he would take time for further reflection on the proposed list, he went on to express a strong point of view.

“I’ll come out front and say, $11.4 million… I would not vote in favor. It’s too high, [by a significant amount]… People might disagree with me on that… I just want to be transparent,” he said.

While the committee members did not delve deeply into all of the projects on the list, one item did seem to raise eyebrows: a $750,000 generator for the high school.

Pardo briefly explained that the high school building does not have a generator, and in his opinion should have one.

Committee member Rudy Escalante said he felt the focus should be on needed repairs on existing facilities and not “additional” items. Temple also commented that the absence of a generator does not seem to have been a “great hardship” in the past and was inclined to view it as low priority.

Notably, DPW’s priority list did not include any repairs for the Gilbert & Bennett building. DPW is in the process of determining what the costs would be for remediation of mold and other problems. The Town’s needs assessment had previously estimated G&B building repairs at $2-$3 million to address roof issues, water intrusion, septic issues and other significant upgrades.

“I want to thank Jeff for putting this together,” committee member Selectman Bas Nabulsi said. “For my money, this is exactly the type of thing I was hoping we could have from [DPW].”

Boucher also thanked DPW leadership for drafting the priority list and reiterated her point that educating residents is critical for getting projects approved.

“It’s important to be transparent and present this to the town’s people so they can understand the needs and make the ultimate decision,” Boucher said. “We should give some credence to the knowledgeable people who come to the polls.”

“Pictures help, tours help, having [things] open to the public before things go to the [Annual] Town Meeting, having them come and see, kick the tires and [ask] ‘is this really necessary?’,” she said, referring to measures such as the new turf field at Allen’s Meadow (which was defeated) and the new police station (which passed).

Temple concurred.

“We serve the projects well by communicating well about the needs,” she said.

TSNAP meets again at 5 p.m. on Oct. 23.

Correction: the 15-year capital plan is estimated at $213 million, not $230 million which appeared in an earlier version of this story.