Despite her fervency in wanting to see the head of her Department of Public Works rewarded, First Selectman Toni Boucher apparently neglected to take procedure into account when she asked the Board of Selectmen to sanction a raise for him at the Tuesday, Feb. 17, meeting.
A public appearance by DPW Director Frank Smeriglio has not occurred in 2026 without Boucher enthusiastically lauding his performance and highlighting the demands of his workload.
Just recently, Boucher also announced that she had created a new position within the DPW — capital planning, facilities and real estate manager — which she said would be hired and supervised by Smeriglio, but is actually listed as having a starting salary range higher than Smeriglio’s — from $160,000 to $175,000.
Smeriglio, who has been with the town for over seven years and DPW director since February 2022, currently makes $166,000, Boucher said. Because there has been no review of his base salary since that time — and since she said other area towns pay their DPW director from between $180,000 and $230,000, she was concerned that it should be higher.
Boucher said she had reviewed specific line items and identified what she believed to be surplus funds that could be redirected to support the increase. But as she described shifting money between departments to accomplish that, selectmen raised concerns that doing so without prior approval from the Board of Finance could run afoul of budget transfer requirements under state statute.
“This would now be, from now til the beginning of July, would be a $5,215.70 transfer, and it would be within the Department of Highway,” Boucher said.
She said that there was already money in that budget because they had a position that had not been filled. “In fact, there was quite a bit more than the $5,000 readily available until the end of the year,” Boucher said.
Selectman Matt Raimondi, emphasizing that the issue was not whether Smeriglio deserved the increase, pointed out that this change could possibly constitute improper process on the town’s part.
“My comments are not about the merits of his increase or the great job Frank does,” he said.
Though Raimondi had put in a request at the prior meeting, Chief Financial Officer Dawn Savo said she was not able to provide the budget-to-actual figures by department in greater detail. While she said that overall she thought the town could potentially be under budget for Fiscal Year 2026, she wasn’t able to “drill down” to get more detailed figures.
Raimondi, however, noted that several departments appeared to potentially be exceeding their budget allocations, including the DPW, based on the figures he was given.
“There are a handful of departments here that are right now above the 58% you’d expect them at for this time of the year,” he said. “The one that I want to talk about, that’s going to parley into the next conversation, is DPW, is at a $1.2-million run rate, which is above their $940,000 budget for the year.”
“We may just want to push back agenda item #9 until we have that forecast,” he said of any discussion on Smeriglio’s compensation rate, again emphasizing process.
“If we go over, one — that’s not a good thing to go over our budget; but two — we also need to go to the Board of Finance as well,” Raimondi said. “For good governance, we should try to keep it to us.”
Raimondi noted that state statute would require the BOS to seek fresh approvals from the BOF if it was to exceed department spending.
“If you’re going to make a transfer from a separate department, you’ll need to go to the Board of Finance to get it approved,” he said.
Selectman matt raimondi
Boucher said she agreed with him completely — at least in principle — noting that it was a demonstration of how tight the budget was.
Raimondi contradicted this particular point, however, pointing out that based on the current numbers overall it looked like they had over budgeted for last year, which Savo also indicated, though certain departments were exceeding their spending.
“You could have cut even more,” Raimondi said, based on spending to date overall for Fiscal Year 2026.
Boucher, however, said she had “already looked into that particular line” — though it wasn’t clear which one she referenced and assured Raimondi she could show him a figure that showed the money in hand.
Consequently, she said she wanted the BOS to discuss and approve the raise this evening. She confidently expressed that the money could be taken out of the Highway Department’s budget, stating she’d had a discussion with Controller Tracy Haberman.
Raimondi was adamant, however — and convinced the other three selectmen likewise — that it was not proper procedure to authorize the spending if the department was over its budget. He said authorization of the increase was even potentially a legal question to pose to the town counsel.
“I just need to see what the year-to-date forecast is going to be and then we can have a discussion of what we want to increase,” Raimondi said, noting it was 12:15 p.m. and they were in their sixth hour of the meeting.
Boucher responded, “I don’t know when we’re going to get that though. When are we going to get the year-to-date forecast?”
“Right now I’m asking the board if they would, please, approve this so the pay period in March would reflect this change of just the $5,000 total … It’s in a line item that will have this surplus in it until the end of the year,” she said.
Boucher expressed a belief that the Highway Department is under the auspices of the DPW, so this would be okay — something Raimondi disputed.
“If you’re going to make a transfer from a separate department, you’ll need to go to the Board of Finance to get it approved,” he said.
Selectman Rich McCarty agreed with Raimondi that they should wait.
“I think we should push to see that we’re not spending money that we can’t spend, or that we forecast we can’t spend,” McCarty said. “I take Matt’s point about what the number is.”
Boucher asked whether that meant the board would have to wait until July 1, when the fiscal year ends.
“How do we know between now and July 1 what the ultimate rate will be?” she said.
Raimondi continued to explain as Boucher asked Savo when it would be possible to learn the forecast numbers.
“I just have to go look at the budget,” Savo said. “I’m not sure what you looked at with Tracy.”