Was the move to unite Wilton’s town and school financial oversight under one shared CFO a success or failure? The answer depends on which Wilton official you ask — and at what point in the experiment you examine. The question has become one of particular interest in the wake of the clouded departure of former Chief Financial Officer Dawn Norton.
Earlier this month Norton resigned from her position as Wilton’s CFO following revelations first reported by GOOD Morning Wilton that she had been simultaneously — and reportedly without informing town officials — holding a full-time job as town administrator-finance director for a municipality in Wyoming, where she has been residing and working remotely from for several months.
Town and school officials were already planning to once again separate the role and responsibilities of what, for the past eight years, has been a single chief financial officer position simultaneously serving the town and Wilton Public Schools. Norton’s sudden departure, however, expedited that change.
On Friday, Aug. 15, Wilton Public Schools Superintendent Kevin Smith officially put closure on the experiment by appointing Laila Rudinas as the new CFO for the school district. On the Town side, meanwhile, officials have formed a search committee and posted a job description for a town-only CFO that does not include any duties for the Board of Education.
“This idea was explored several times over a period of more than a year,” Town Administrator Matt Knickerbocker said on Tuesday, Aug. 19, but no action had been taken to officially separate the roles.
“The CFO’s recent departure presented an opportunity to accelerate the decision and move forward,” he said.
As the Board of Selectmen has scrambled to find a replacement, starting with a temporary interim CFO to at least cover the next month or two, it is redefining the position to return it to what was originally a sole focus on the Town Hall Finance Department eight years ago, and now bringing the tax collector and assessor under that umbrella.
While on paper, Norton was still CFO of Wilton Public Schools at the time of her departure and earning more than $200,000 annually for the dual role, over the past 18 months she worked almost exclusively for the BOS and Town Hall.
Asked if Norton was doing any BOE work over the past 18 months, Smith said on Monday, Aug. 18, “No. Or at least virtually none.”
In its current budget, however, the BOE still had allocated about $100,000 toward it’s portion of Norton’s salary.
Though there was minimal involvement over the past year, Smith still shared strong praise for Norton.
“In the years we worked together, I experienced Dawn as a talented professional who worked incredibly hard and committed an exceptional amount of time trying to ensure that all of the many demands were being met,” Smith said.
The Original Idea
Smith outlined some of the thinking that went into the original decision.
“It is important to state that all of the major boards in town have had a shared interest in making decisions that enable the town to run as effectively and efficiently as possible,” Smith told GOOD Morning Wilton on Friday morning, Aug. 15. “Finding opportunities to shrink costs and improve efficiency has long been a goal and remains a goal today.”
Smith said that when the previous CFO, Anne Kelly-Lenz was hired at the end of 2015, he and then-First Selectwoman Lynne Vanderslice saw an opportunity to potentially save money and streamline processes. Conversations ensued over the next year and a half, with the Board of Finance and Board of Education weighing in.
In September 2017, Kelly-Lenz began the role as dual finance director for both the town and schools.
“Anne had deep municipal and school district experience,” Smith said, with the BOE only having an interim financial director in place at that time in Dick Huot. “Because of her experience, and that the fact that she had a Connecticut school business officer certificate, Lynne and I agreed that this could be a really powerful opportunity.”
For her part, Vanderslice still sees the experiment as a success, one she said was initially motivated more by frustrations coming from the BOF in response to an expanding school budget.
“The result was positive for the BOE,” Vanderslice said on Sunday, Aug. 17. “It significantly improved the board’s relationship with the BOF. And it was a financial benefit to the taxpayers.”
“During the first four years, there was over $1 million in wage, benefits and consulting fees saved,” she said, along with savings on software costs for the BOE balanced around $100,000.
Vanderslice noted that following the 2019 fight against school regionalization in Hartford, Gov. Ned Lamont publicly recognized Wilton as a leader in creating shared services between school district and their municipalities, based in part on Kelly-Lenz’s role.
Put into Practice
“Conceptually, it remains a very strong idea as long as there are optimal conditions, (but) there were many challenges and many complexities that confronted the role immediately,” Smith said.
He shared that the issues began with the simple inability to create a common physical space for a finance office, given space and cost restrictions. While he said it would have augmented training and cooperative work within a singular finance department, they were unable to make this happen.
“The second challenge, on the town side, which you’ve heard a lot about, is the shortage of staff in the finance office,” Smith said. “Added to those were the challenges and time commitments demanded by the installation of a new financial software package.”
Further, Smith said, duties between the two offices — the town and the schools — required complete segregation of duties and operations. For these reasons, he said, the job, as it was originally envisioned, proved to be too big for a single person.
“There is a reason why very, very few municipalities in Connecticut have a shared CFO arrangement,” Smith said.
What about the Costs?
With the plan to combine the roles, the town increased the salary for Kelly-Lenz, with the increase staying in place even after Norton was transitioned out of the work.
“In the BOE’s current budget, there is approximately $100,000 reserved for this shared position,” Smith said.
“By the time Anne departed … we had learned a great deal about the challenges of the role,” Smith said. “At the time Dawn was hired [in March 2022], we had anticipated that we would be able to overcome some of the significant barriers. Over the course of Dawn’s first year and a half, I concluded that the shared CFO position was not going to be workable and began to discuss how we might separate offices.”
In that process, Smith began looking for an additional business office position, ultimately hiring Rudinas in January 2024, he said, in anticipation of separating the shared CFO position.
He noted that Maryann Salvato, a longtime finance employee and assistant director of finance for the WPS, took on many of Norton’s responsibilities during that time, alongside school finance employees Sokki Polito, Rose Anderson, and Karis Miller.
“Dawn was working to try and effectively manage all of the challenges confronting her in town hall,” Smith said.
Smith said the $100,000 previously earmarked for Norton will now be part of Rudinas’s increase as the new CFO. She was originally hired at $125,000 annually, but her new salary is $195,000. Salvato’s current salary is $130,000.
“In the past, we had provided an additional stipend for assuming additional responsibilities,” Smith said, noting that the redefinition of the finance roles within the WPS would be discussed publicly with the BOE later this year.
The town itself is offering a salary of between $160,000 to $200,000 for a new CFO, even though this year it has only budgeted just over $100,000 for its share of Norton’s position.
Asked about the challenges that Town Hall has experienced in trying to staff its Finance Department, including having one position unfilled for over 18 months, versus WPS’s ability to find a candidate, Smith would not speculate.
“I have no comment on the current CFO situation at town hall,” Smith said. “It’s not my place and I don’t have a full picture of what was happening.”
BOF Chair Matt Raimondi said that while personnel and hiring decisions were not within his board’s purview, budgetary needs to cover salaries is.
“That said, any cost implications from that new job description and splitting the roles will be likely be a topic in front of the BOF for future budget discussions,” Raimondi said.
Vanderslice, who left office at the end of 2023, said that the Fiscal Year 2022 town operating budget included funds for an additional Finance Department employee. She said it was a proactive response to anticipated needs due to the possible retirement of finance employees in both offices, as well as expected increases in finance work.
“Anne left mid-year before the position was filled,” Vanderslice said, noting that without the additional employee the work would have fallen on her plate. “Subsequently, the BOE, rather than the BOS, hired the additional finance employee.”
“Recent statements that Anne left because the job was too hard or too big for her are factually incorrect,” Vanderslice said, “and more importantly demeaning to a former employee recognized by all as outstanding.”
Kelly-Lenz currently serves as the CFO for the town of New Canaan, where Norton had coincidentally served as director of finance / CFO prior to coming to Wilton.
Current Search
First Selectman Toni Boucher released a lengthy statement through the town’s e-blast system on Friday, Aug. 15 about the search for a new CFO and steps she says she’s taken.
It has been a very busy week since Wilton’s Town Administration discovered that our former Chief Financial Officer (CFO), Dawn Norton, had accepted a full-time position in another state while being employed full time in Wilton, without any prior notification.
I was shocked and outraged when I first learned of this on Aug. 4, and moved to immediately rectify the situation. Ms. Norton was asked to resign and her resignation letter was on my desk by August 5th. I then updated the CFO job description to include changes in the Town CFO responsibilities. The Board of Selectmen was asked to review, edit and approve the new CFO job description at a special meeting of the Board of Selectmen on Friday August 8th. I also assembled a search team comprised of three members of the Board of Selectmen, two members of the Board of Finance and a community member who had previously served as the Wilton Board of Finance Chairman. Since posting the CFO job on the town’s website, and on state and municipal job sites, we have received several resumes which are now under review.
Because a deadline of Oct. 1, 2025 has been set to receive responses to the CFO job listing, a temporary CFO is needed in the meantime. Fortunately, a member of the Board Finance was able to recommend a few firms that provide interim CFO services whose candidates have experience in Connecticut towns. I have contacted several of these firms and, with Board approval, am expecting to have an interim CFO in place very soon. This person will remain in this position until our search for a new, permanent CFO has successfully concluded. We intend to be careful, deliberate and discerning in our choice of the next Town CFO. We must make sure they have all the necessary skills and relevant financial and management experience, and be able to review our financial systems in order to make any process improvements as necessary. A future employment agreement will also include a provision that the candidate commits to working exclusively for the Town of Wilton. We recently undertook the same revision and review of our Information Technology Department which began when we hired our new IT Director, Nick Cataldo, a year ago. Nick has worked tirelessly to successfully upgrade and modernize our systems and hardware, greatly improving town functions. I am confident that we will be doing the same for our Finance Department.
We will keep the public updated as we move forward in this process. Please reach out to me with any questions you may have.