CFO’s Absence Frustrates Wilton Selectmen as Financial Questions Mount

Questions of transparency, communication and information were raised again by the Board of Selectmen on Tuesday, Sept. 22.

The most intense questions followed a revelation by a resident during public comment: An unfinished draft of Wilton’s FY2025 financial statements and preliminary audit data was posted publicly onto EMMA (Electronic Municipal Market Access), the municipal bond market’s disclosure system, without at least three of the BOS members’ knowledge and without being formally provided to the Town’s two main elected boards. The selectmen also learned Tuesday night that the posted document contained a $9.58 million restatement of the Town’s previously issued FY2024 financial figures.

The new information prompted a host of pointed questions and concerns from board members about why an incomplete document containing conflicting figures was available to investors and rating agencies but had not been formally provided by the administration to either the Board of Selectmen or the Board of Finance.

In addition, Chief Financial Officer Dawn Savo was not in attendance Tuesday evening to answer any questions.

Instead, Savo provided preliminary Fiscal Year 2027 year-to-date financial information in an abbreviated report read aloud by First Selectman Toni Boucher, along with written responses to BOS members’ questions about the delayed FY2025 audit, the EMMA filing, current financial reporting, the Town’s continued use of accounting consultant PKF O’Connor Davies and newly identified accounting problems.

Their comments Tuesday echoed the frustration and disappointment BOS members had expressed in Savo’s absence at their Sept. 8 meeting, as well as their unhappiness at receiving her report only hours ahead of that meeting.

“This is our third meeting that our CFO hasn’t attended … She missed our last meeting,” Selectman Matt Raimondi said. “I would just say, going forward, if she can’t attend the meeting again, I think we should reschedule our meeting. I think it’s very important that she’s here to answer our questions.”

Boucher explained that Savo had a schedule conflict on Tuesday evening, and noted that she and Second Selectman Ross Tartell were aware last week that Savo would not be attending and had asked the other selectmen to submit written questions on the FY27 budget actuals, and that she would read Savo’s answers aloud.

Raimondi said he had other unanswered questions about FY26 that he had asked at prior BOS meetings and later emailed to Boucher and Savo.

“I then forwarded them again over the weekend,” he said. “I still have not heard back, and so I would just politely ask that those are addressed.”

EMMA Filing Transparency Concerns

The EMMA filing was brought into public focus by resident Joshua Kopac, who told the board that the draft Annual Comprehensive Financial Report had been posted Sept. 1 on EMMA, the Municipal Securities Rulemaking Board’s public repository for municipal bond disclosures.

Kopac said the draft disclosed that Wilton’s FY2024 financial statements understated governmental capital assets by $9,577,619. He also identified conflicting figures within the document and asked when the error was discovered, who was informed and who authorized posting the unfinished report.

“This is the first time I’ve heard it,” Selectman David Tatkow said of the restatement. “I’m very concerned.”

Although Savo had told the BOS in a Sept. 19 email that a draft had been posted “per disclosure rules by our bond advisor,” the email included no link and made no mention of the $9.58 million restatement.

Board of Finance member Kim Healy had independently discovered the filing and emailed the link to the full BOF on Sept. 9. She noted that the document contained extensive incomplete and outdated material and asked what had prompted it to be filed prematurely. The administration did not formally distribute the draft to either board until Wednesday, Sept. 23, after BOF Chair Tim Birch requested it.

[Editor’s note: an upcoming article will examine the EMMA filing in more detail.]

Draft Posted Publicly but Withheld from Boards — with Conflicting Accounts About Why

Raimondi questioned why the unfinished report was publicly accessible to investors, rating agencies and others via EMMA but had not been provided to the BOS.

“Why was the audit submitted to EMMA when it wasn’t submitted to us?” he asked.

Boucher referred to one of Savo’s written answers to a question from Tartell, which stated: “A draft [of the audit] was done for the end of August and posted to EMMA per disclosure rules by our bond advisor.”

Tartell then read from a separate Sept. 21 email from Savo (to him, Boucher, Tim Birch and BOF Vice Chair Rudy Escalante) sent when Tartell asked for a link to the FY2025 draft on EMMA so they could be available for Tuesday’s BOS meeting.

Savo wrote her reasons for not wanting to share the link.

“The FY2025 audited financial statements have not yet been finalized, so there is not a final audit link available on EMMA, just an earlier draft from 8/30 that was necessary per our bond advisor to accommodate Moody’s,” she wrote.

Savo said she had discussed distribution of the document with Birch and Escalante of the BOF.

“Because the Board of Finance oversees the audit, I discussed this with Tim and Rudy. We agreed that the draft should not be distributed to the boards until the audit is complete,” Savo wrote.

Savo said the figures remained subject to audit adjustments and that releasing preliminary financial information could create confusion and require her to spend time responding to questions about numbers that were not yet final and had not been presented by the Town’s audit firm CliftonLarsonAllen to the BOF. She said she’d share the link once the audit was finalized and publicly posted.

Raimondi called Savo’s response “problematic.”

“The Board of Finance is our town’s audit committee. You cannot post an audit without the Board of Finance signing off,” Raimondi said, adding he was unhappy the BOS wasn’t informed either, “We are the Town’s fiduciaries. When that audit is sent, it is our names on the front.”

Raimondi said it was again an issue of a lack of transparency.

“I appreciate our CFO answered questions here. It’s not a comment on the Finance Department. It’s a comment for the administration in general,” he said. “We should not be getting a surprise about numbers that are pushed to the entire financial world to see, and we hear about it in a public comment or through email.”

Tartell referred Savo’s email describing her discussion with Birch and Escalante, to which Raimondi responded, “Under what power do the people on that email have to make that decision?”

When Tartell answered back, “[Birch and Escalante] are the Board of Finance,” Raimondi replied that they were two individual members and a minority of the six-member board.

“The board did not discuss that,” Raimondi said.

Tatkow added, “And they didn’t vote on it.”

Tartell replied that it was an issue for Birch and Escalante as BOF chair and vice chair.

Raimondi countered that it was an issue for the BOS members too.

“It’s our responsibility. Did you read what’s going on in town right now? People are asking us questions. They are looking to us because we represent them and we’re not being given the data to do that.”

Tartell pointed to the BOF’s recent decision not to seat any BOS members on its newly formed Audit Remediation and Financial Reporting Subcommittee. “So our point of view is not represented on the audit committee. Here, they’re saying we don’t need to know.”

“I’m not here to defend them,” Tartell said. “I’m just saying that Dawn followed direction on that.”

Tuesday evening, Birch disputed Savo’s characterization that he had agreed the document should not be distributed.

“I don’t think this is a completely accurate account,” Birch wrote in an email to Savo, the BOS and BOF. “I was asked not to distribute the draft to BOF because it was too incomplete.”

Birch requested Wednesday morning that the document be provided to the full BOF ahead of that evening’s Audit Remediation and Financial Reporting Subcommittee meeting.

In a separate response to GOOD Morning Wilton, Birch said, “I had no knowledge of the filing with EMMA until after the fact.”

It remains unclear when the distribution discussion occurred or what Escalante understood had been decided.

Questions About $9.58 Million Restatement

As the conversation continued at the table, Boucher said she did not want to respond to assertions made during public comment by resident Joshua Kopac before they had been reviewed and verified.

Kopac had previously written a lengthy Letter to the Editor published on Sept. 17 in GOOD Morning Wilton that outlined a chronology of public statements made by Boucher and Savo and raised questions about inconsistencies in their accounts of the Finance Department’s work.

In his public comments to the BOS Tuesday evening, Kopac said that the unfinished report posted to EMMA disclosed that during FY2025 the Town determined certain assets had not been included in its financial management system, and as a result, the Town’s FY2024 financial statements understated governmental capital assets by $9,577,619.

Kopac emphasized that the disclosure does not indicate money is missing. Rather, it means the government-wide financial statements issued for FY2024 did not include the full value of assets the Town owned. He also said other errors were found, and asked the BOS to direct Savo to answer a series of specific questions about the filing. [Editor’s note: GMW will cover Kopac’s assertions and findings in an upcoming article.]

When Raimondi later referred to the $9.58 million error, Boucher interrupted to say the information first needed to be verified.

“Before we make these blanket statements, let’s get the answers from the people that are doing the job, okay,” Boucher said. “There’s issues there that need to be followed up with proper answers before people go off and make assumptions that everything that’s being stated is correct because there have been a lot of inaccurate statements.”

Boucher did not identify which statements she considered inaccurate. She said the administration would review Kopac’s comments “point by point” and respond.

Raimondi said questioning the financial information was part of the board’s oversight obligation.

“Our role is not to defend anybody except the people of Wilton. That is what our role is — to provide oversight. It’s if we have questions, to ask those questions. Any assertion that we should not be doing that, that is against our Charter and, frankly, it’s against democracy.”

Boucher said she welcomed questions but objected to questions being posed in what she considered an accusatory or disrespectful manner critical of her staff.

“All questions are welcomed by the public, by anyone that comes before us, and by any members of the board,” she said. “It’s the manner in which questions are asked, and it has created a very difficult environment for people that work in Wilton.”

Audit Still Targeted for Sept. 30

In her written answers to the selectmen’s questions, Savo said CLA had submitted the draft financial statements to its national review team the previous week, and she detailed remaining updates that the Town was responsible for completing.

“Based on where we are today, completion on or around September 30 remains a realistic target,” Savo wrote. “However, the national review may generate additional questions or requested revisions.”

Savo said those questions could require responses from the Town, the Board of Education, PKF or others.

“This audit has required a coordinated effort among Town Finance, the BOE, PKF and CLA,” she wrote. “Ultimately, I am responsible for getting it finalized, and that continues to be my priority.”

Raimondi noted that Sept. 30 was the latest in a series of projected completion dates.

Boucher also cited the extensive amount of work facing Finance Department staff.

Selectman David Tatkow, in response, said the BOS had repeatedly offered the administration additional resources after it became clear the audit would be late.

“We offered help. We offered advice,” he said. “Back in the spring when we realized that the audit was going to be late, multiple times we said, if you need help, we want to provide it.”

“Then tell us that,” Tatkow said. “Why not tell us that in January or February.”

Boucher said the financial problems turned out to be “more complex and more widespread” than originally anticipated.

PKF Work Remains Unfinished

Savo’s written responses also clarified that two significant trial balances were not completed until mid-July — a disclosure that conflicts with an earlier public statement that PKF had completed the work it was hired to perform by April 15.

“PKF had completed the bulk of the fund trial balances,” Savo wrote. “The remaining trial balances for Fund 1 and Fund 10 were finalized in mid-July because cash reconciliation issues first had to be resolved.”

Fund 1 is the Town’s largest fund, the General Fund, and Savo stated at BOS meetings on May 18 and June 15 that Centofanti was continuing substantial work on reconciliations for that fund.

Tatkow questioned why the Town had publicly said the work was completed by April 15 when significant portions remained unfinished.

“Why have a statement go out from Town Hall saying that it was done by the 15th when it wasn’t done?” he asked. “It just seems like an unforced error to me.”

The Town has paid PKF $257,262 to date, according to Savo.

In her email answers to the selectmen, she wrote that PKF’s work “is not entirely finished” and that lingering accounting issues will also have to be addressed as part of the FY2026 closing process.

Savo said PKF’s work included preparing trial balances, resolving cash and balance-sheet reconciliation issues, identifying and preparing correcting entries, preparing audit schedules, researching unresolved balances and assisting with CLA’s requests.

“There has not been a formal handoff because the work has not yet reached that point,” she wrote.

Additional Accounting Issue Discovered

Savo also disclosed that investment advisory fees associated with the Town’s pension and other post-employment benefit trusts had been paid and charged to a general-fund liability account when they should have been paid directly from the trusts.

The issue was discovered during the audit, she said, and was under review with the Pension Board and Town counsel.

Raimondi asked whether the trusts would reimburse the general fund, noting that the payments had come from the Town’s operating budget.

Savo’s written response did not answer that question, stating only that the matter remained under review.

Special Meeting Scheduled

Raimondi proposed holding a special BOS meeting at which Savo could answer board members’ questions directly.

Boucher initially asked selectmen to submit follow-up questions in writing so Savo could prepare responses. Tartell suggested that any special meeting take place after Sept. 30, the current target for completing the audit.

The board later scheduled a special meeting for Tuesday, Sept. 29, at 7 p.m. — one day before the projected completion date.

The BOF’s Audit Remediation and Financial Reporting Subcommittee met Wednesday, Sept. 23, with the revised draft financial report on its agenda. GOOD Morning Wilton will have complete coverage of all upcoming meetings.