First Selectman Toni Boucher strived to paint a rosy picture when she updated the BOF on Tuesday, Sept. 9, about the efforts to fill the openings in Wilton’s Finance Department — including a new CFO and controller for the Town.
“We’re making progress in each of the positions that we’re looking for,” Boucher said.
But despite the fact that key finance personnel are not in place and an interim CFO is just starting his time at Town Hall, Board of Finance Chair Matt Raimondi made it clear at Tuesday night’s BOF meeting: Town Hall must meet its obligations to provide whatever budget data the financiers request in a timely manner — no exceptions.
Raimondi sent a memo to both the Board of Selectmen and the Board of Education “respectfully” requesting financial data to help the BOF set budget guidance for FY 2027. He set a deadline of Oct. 10, the Friday before his board’s next meeting on Tuesday, Oct. 14.
The data he asked for from Town Hall included FY 2026 year-to-date budget to actual expenditures by major line item, forecasts for FY 2027 and FY 2028, staffing projections, bargaining unit contracts and step increases, debt service projects for the next two years, and available grand list forecast data.
Raimondi emphasized to Boucher that his board was very serious about Town Hall’s ability — and willingness — to meet its budget responsibilities and expectations, in order to begin setting a clear preliminary budget guidance next month.
“I want to be very clear,” Raimondi said. “This is not an option for Town Hall. The Board of Finance, per the Charter, has the right to request any information we need. We expect to get it in October.”
Personnel Issues
Following last month’s sudden departure of Wilton’s chief financial officer, things went from bad to worse for the Town’s Finance Department last week when Controller Tony DeFelice, the second in command, announced that he too was leaving.
DeFelice has offered to stay on until a replacement is found, but his departure would leave only two relatively new employees in a department that has been unable to fill a third position for two years.
Coupled with a slew of issues the town has been facing since last year, including concerns over process under Boucher’s leadership in various areas, Wilton is also looking for a new town administrator to replace Matt Knickerbocker, whose contract expired this week but who has said he also would stick around to help with the transition.
Meanwhile, a new highly paid interim CFO named Joseph Centofanti, who is being retained from the accounting firm PKF O’Connor Davies, LLP, has begun meeting with staff.
Boucher told the BOF that Centofanti will conduct an assessment of what he sees as the interim staffing needs and, most likely, suggest additional personnel that might be brought in from his company on a per diem basis.
“He is now going to be available to us every single day,” Boucher said, though the intention was originally that he would do one or two eight-hour days in Wilton. Boucher noted that Centofanti also has 15 other clients and lives north of Hartford.
Prioritizing the BOF’s Request for Financial Information
In one of the most tense parts of the conversation with Boucher, Raimondi emphasized his board’s interest in prioritizing the budget data request, no matter the situation at Town Hall.
Boucher had suggested that with key positions vacant, producing accurate numbers could be difficult. She argued the town needed “good information, rather than just guesses,” and suggested that last year’s early estimates had been misinterpreted as final numbers.
She implied that from “past experience,” the BOF’s timetable for the budget process was more rushed than what allowed town leadership to meet with town departments.
During her report on the interim CFO, Boucher said she had shown him Raimondi’s request and that Centofanti had responded that it might not be possible to fulfill given all that needed to be done in the Finance Department.
“He feels that the budget has to be right, rather than fast,” Boucher said. “And I agree with him wholeheartedly.”
After Raimondi reminded her about the BOF’s Charter-given authority over the budget in pressing for his request to get this year’s budget actuals, he was clear in his retort about last year’s experience.
“If there are issues delivering to us what we need, we can discuss that. If you want to refer to the past, I’m happy to have that conversation about the presentation we were given last year. I’m happy to do that,” he said, “but I would suggest that our interim CFO make this a priority, because we do expect to get it in October.”
He also noted the same request was made to the Board of Education without issue.
“The Board of Education, with a far larger budget, was able to provide estimates in a timely manner. We expect the same from Town Hall,” Raimondi said.
Boucher countered that municipal budgeting involves “a lot more moving parts” than the school side, but ultimately conceded that if Town Hall lacks the in-house resources to meet the deadline, it may need to hire outside support, and that Town departments were still too focused on closing out FY 2025 to forecast FY 2026.
“We’re suggesting to them … that they look at that and give us some of their guesses as what it should be…” Boucher began.
Raimondi, visibly unsatisfied, cut her off.
“You’re using this word ‘guesses’ a lot and I want to be very clear … — these are financial metrics. There are very few guesses,” he said, noting that town officials should be able to forecast labor and benefit costs with union contracts. “All of this stuff is forecastable within a certain percent.”
Raimondi closed the exchange by underscoring his point. “This is an expectation.”
In later discussion, Raimondi said that after receiving and discussing material on both budgets at its October meeting, the BOF will plan to vote on the budget guidance it will give to both the BOE and the BOS.
Emphasizing that the CFO role was supposed to be a partner to the BOF, Raimondi asked Boucher if Centofanti would be amendable to direct requests and inquiries from his board. Boucher confirmed he would.
Noting that the comparison of actual current expenditures as compared to the town’s current budget, constituted the first basic need of the BOF at this time — sometimes it hopes to see on a regular basis — Raimondi also suggested that Centofanti could ultimately provide a report on his experiences in town with regard to its processes.
“He’s going to see how our financial processes work and it sounds like he’s very gifted and very skilled, so I think it would benefit us,” Raimondi said.
Many Applications for CFO Position
As for her update on filling the CFO position, Boucher said Town Hall has received many applications, with 40 resumes in hand, as well as interest already expressed for the controller position. She said that four people were going to be interviewed online on Friday for the CFO role.
According to Boucher, the majority of the applicants have no municipal experience, but are instead hoping to transfer out of the corporate sector — a common hiring theme, she said, also facing other area municipalities.
Applications have arrived from both Illinois and South Carolina, but Boucher said most of the candidates are from Connecticut or New York.
With interviews also underway for a new town administrator, BOF member Sandy Arkell asked what she described as a question that she’s hearing a lot from constituents, namely whether it was fiscally practical or necessary to have both a CFO and a town administrator, especially if their skillsets overlapped.
Boucher was adamant that, at this time, it was important for the town to fill both positions.
“That’s a big discussion to have, but not in the middle of what we have right now,” Boucher said.
She noted that, while as a resident she was originally against the idea of hiring a town administrator for the first time in 2022, she now saw the need.
Arkell pointed out that, while former CFO Dawn Norton had been designated as CFO for both the Town and the school district, Wilton Public Schools has now hired its own CFO, so those responsibilities will not fall under the next CFO’s purview.
“I think it does raise the question … Could you have a town administrator with a very strong financial director and a controller?” Arkell said.
“It’s just something that I think you guys should consider,” she said.
Boucher said it had been discussed, but that there were “critical needs” that had to be filled.
“Right now we need to fill the positions that we have and get through the transition,” she said.
“Right now we need a really strong CFO,” Boucher said. “It is, for us, like the superintendent is the top position in the school system. The CFO is really the top position.”