The bulk of the work appears to have already been completed by the former Board of Finance Chair Matt Raimondi, but the newly-formed Bonding Committee is looking to make sure everything is properly cemented together.
The brainchild of the new Board of Finance Chair Tim Birch, the Bonding Committee met virtually on Wednesday, Feb. 4, for the first time to discuss what it hopes will be the sanctioned creation of some kind of standardized spreadsheet model that can help the Board of Selectmen plot and predict estimations for capital bonding scenarios.
Although he is now a BOS member, Raimondi previously designed a spreadsheet model that provides many answers to hypothetical bonding scenarios while he was serving as BOF chair. Raimondi created his model to make estimations about the mill rate, but Birch said he wanted to see more done with the tool.
“It’s a top-down forecasting tool,” said Raimondi, who is serving as a “special liaison” to the three-person committee. “The whole purpose behind it is to say in any given year how much bonding can we take on.”
“What I was actually doing was forecasting debt service … and the bonding number is almost an output of it,” he said.
Given the existence of Raimondi’s detailed model, some of the BOF members as well as Raimondi himself questioned the point of even forming a new Bonding Committee, but Birch said it would be an opportunity to look closer at it and make any additions.
The Bonding Committee also drew minor controversy last month when — after Birch had asked the BOS to create a committee with two members representing each of the three major boards — First Selectman Toni Boucher changed it to just one member per board.
Selectman David Tatkow, who chairs the committee that also includes BOF member Kari Roberts and Board of Education member Lori Bufano, initially said the plan is to disband the committee by the time the Annual Town Meeting is held on Tuesday, May 5, but there’s a possibility that it could continue longer.
“It’s a fairly tight mandate,” Tatkow said, emphasizing that the Bonding Committee would neither make any recommendations on bonding items nor direct the BOS on any course of action with regard to bonding.
Roberts raised the question of whether just handing a spreadsheet model over to the BOS was practical, fearing there might be no guarantee that it would function properly or the potentially for it to be mishandled somehow and result in incorrect data.
“It would be nice if someone kept track … so that it’s being used properly and throwing out the right numbers,” Roberts said, suggesting the Bonding Committee might want to remain in operation longer in order to help in that process.
“Maybe we should have a longer expiration date because we should make sure that the integrity of the model is maintained … You want to make sure that there is a person or a group of people that is responsible for the integrity of the model,” she said.
Raimondi said that historically the projections were carried out by the town’s chief financial officer, though in the case of First Selectwoman Lynne Vanderslice, who had a deep financial background, much of that work was done prior to Boucher taking office.
“If we hand it off and then scenarios are run and maybe something is not thought of and the model integrity is compromised or something, then it produces bad numbers and nobody knows,” Roberts said, “so maybe this committee wants to remain responsible for the integrity of the model with any future mapping-of-debt scenarios.”
Tatkow, who put forward a brief written mission statement of the Bonding Committee, suggested that the group could wait on deciding.
“I think that’s worth clarifying,” Tatkow said. “That’s a very good point … I can reach out to Town Hall and see if that’s an appropriate place for the owner. Ideally this is something that doesn’t have to be recreated … something that each year with minimal updates can be used by future Board of Selectmen, Board of Finance going forward each year.”
Tatkow’s mandate charges the Wilton Bonding Committee with providing a Microsoft Excel-based model of both existing bonding commitments and projected future debt service based on various scenarios.
“The committee may add functionality to the model allowing the user to see the impact on debt service from early redemptions of outstanding debt, or other decisions around bonding, but will not be recommending any specific course of action,” Tatkow wrote.
Raimondi said that, while he’s not a voting member, the WBC could make the recommendation to the BOS that it clarify where ownership of the model rests and who specifically will be responsible for confirming its proper functioning.
“The ownership of the model is probably a Board of Selectmen decision,” Raimondi said.