Key Points:
- CFO Dawn Savo took over FY25 reconciliation work that had been assigned to consultant Joseph Centofanti.
- BOF members are still waiting for detailed FY26 financial information after requesting it for two months.
- The delayed FY25 audit is now expected by Sept. 30 as questions continue about consulting costs, staffing and financial oversight.
Why It Matters: Delays in completing one fiscal year are limiting the BOF’s ability to examine subsequent finances, identify emerging problems and provide effective oversight of taxpayer funds.
Chief Financial Officer Dawn Savo had to take over work on Wilton’s fiscal year 2025 financial reconciliation after consultant Joseph Centofanti “didn’t produce it,” Board of Finance Chair Tim Birch said at the board’s regular meeting Tuesday, Sept. 8.
The disclosure offered a new explanation for why Savo has not yet provided the BOF with detailed FY26 budget-to-actual figures. When Savo was hired at the beginning of the year, the plan called for Centofanti, who had served as interim CFO, to complete the FY25 reconciliation and audit work while Savo devoted her time to getting FY26 in order.
Instead, according to details shared with the BOF Tuesday evening, Savo has apparently needed to focus on helping close out the Fiscal Year 2025 audit, despite initial plans that she was not even going to be needed to work on it.
Consequently, Savo has not provided any detailed information on FY26, which is already lining up as the focus for the next audit.
Indeed, frustrations prompted by poor communication and delays from Town Hall continue to trouble the Board of Finance as members have sought information about three fiscal years at once: the still-unfinished FY25 audit, financial results from FY26 and preliminary FY27 figures that are generating questions about tax collection, revenue and more.
FY26 Information Still Outstanding
“At some point we really do need to drill down on what happened this year, right?” BOF member Kim Healy said. “Why are back taxes falling behind? What’s going on in those departments? What needs to change?”
Once again, a sullen Birch reminded his board that it did not have control over operations in Town Hall, repeating his own frustrations with a degree of measured resolve.
“I’ve been asking for the ’26 budget-to-actuals for two months,” Birch said.
“We have to actually get ’26 actual budget, have ’26 closed off so we can begin the process of taking a look at that,” he said. “We don’t have that. We’ve asked for it. We don’t have it. I’ll continue to ask for it every week like I do until we get it.”
Until now, BOF members understood that Savo was, in the words of BOF member Kari Roberts, “doing nothing but ’26.”
“Our new CFO ended up doing the end of ’25 as well,” Birch revealed for the first time, “because [Centofanti] didn’t produce it.”
Questions About Centofanti’s Work and Compensation
For much of 2026 both, Savo and First Selectman Toni Boucher have said that Centofanti was working hard on reconciling the numbers for FY25.
Months ago, both Birch and members of the Board of Selectmen began asking for Centofanti, who bills the town at $375 per hour, to appear at their respective meetings so elected officials could learn the status of his work and ask questions about its progress.
Instead, Boucher and Savo maintained that Centofanti needed to remain focused on the reconciliation and was not required to attend BOF or BOS meetings. After Savo was hired, his role changed from interim CFO to consultant, though he continued working at the same hourly rate.
Several elected officials also raised questions during the spring as to why Centofanti should remain engaged at that $375-an-hour rate, suggesting that the reconciliation work could now be completed by a lower-paid consultant, but both Boucher and Savo said he was already immersed in the work and that it would be best to just let him finish.
With their advocacy of Centofanti’s work and defending his silence, Boucher and Savo reported on at least five occasions through the spring and summer that he was nearing completion of the work and expected to finish within a few weeks.
Birch said he believed that the town had stopped paying Centofanti during the summer — something Savo had said at a BOS meeting — but Healy said she didn’t believe Centofanti was not getting paid, and estimated that his total compensation to date may have come close to $275,000.
Roberts asked whether the town would seek reimbursement from Centofanti’s consulting company, PKF O’Connor Davies, since he failed to finish the work.
“That’s not our purview,” Birch said, indicating it would be up to Boucher and the BOS to pursue the matter.
FY25 Audit Delayed Again
The BOF also learned that the expected completion of the Town’s state-mandated FY25 audit has once again been pushed back, this time to Sept. 30.
Originally due before June 30, the state-approved extension deadline, earlier promises of its completion projected it would be done as early as February. Town Hall officials have repeatedly postponed the finish date because the Town’s FY25 budget numbers had not been fully reconciled.
Healy pointed out that because the Town-side budget for FY25 is still officially open, the delay is also impacting the Board of Education‘s budgeting, as its final FY25 numbers have had to be adjusted based on the ongoing reconciliation.
“They can’t close ’25 because the audit’s not done,” Healy said. “So they’re still getting little adjustments here and there. They were telling me Joe was making changes up until recently to their ’25 numbers, which affect their ’26 numbers.”
Birch described the situation in the Town’s Finance Department as being “all hands on deck” in order to “keep the ship afloat.” This, he said, has taken time away from work on both FY26 and FY27.
In their defense, however, Birch concurred with Healy that Finance Department staff were handcuffed at the beginning of the process this year.
“They didn’t have staffing and they didn’t have anybody to answer a question, and the controller was a nightmare,” Birch said, referring to former Controller Tony DeFelice.
Healy, however, commended DeFelice as having prepared good budgets when she served on the BOS.
DeFelice left Wilton a short time after former CFO Dawn Norton resigned in the fall of 2025, leaving the Town without the two leading officials in its Finance Department.
More Unanswered Questions
Along with the update on the outstanding financial information, Birch said he had finally arranged a meeting for Friday, Sept. 18, with Town attorney Ira Bloom and another lawyer from Berchem Moses, Wilton’s longtime town counsel.
Birch had been unhappy with a recent recommendation made by town counsel advising the BOS that it didn’t need to get BOF approval for budget transfers between departments. Birch maintains that the attorneys’ recommendation is wrong, and he had asked to meet with town counsel weeks ago but hadn’t received a response until recently.
“He has refused to date to send me his analysis,” Birch said, “so I’m not quite sure how that meeting is going to go.”
The BOF has raised questions and disagreed with some of the guidance provided by town counsel over approximately the past 18 months, at one point exploring the possibility of engaging its own counsel on matters.
At the last BOS meeting, in response to revelations of very high legal expenses logged by the town, Selectman Matt Raimondi, the former chair of the BOF, suggested that Town officials research the costs of other law firms in the region for comparison.
