Key Points
- An early FY28 forecast estimates rising town costs before several potential staffing additions are considered.
- Selectmen disagree over whether endorsing a preliminary number could constrain later budget decisions.
- The board plans to revisit the forecast with additional staffing estimates Oct. 5.
Why It Matters: These early discussions could shape how Wilton balances staffing and service needs with pressure to limit spending and tax increases.
Wilton’s Town operating budget and operating capital could rise a combined 4.5% in Fiscal Year 2028 before several potential staffing additions are considered, according to a preliminary forecast Selectman Matt Raimondi presented at the Sept. 22 Board of Selectmen meeting.
The presentation prompted disagreement over when the board should endorse a preliminary budget projection to share with the Board of Finance and whether an early number could constrain later decisions about staffing and other needs.
With no town administrator in place and a chief financial officer facing a substantial workload, Raimondi — a former BOF chair — researched current employment contracts and costs to arrive at an estimate of the baseline increase, in an effort to get ahead of the BOF’s discussions on setting budget guidance.
“When Lynne Vanderslice was first selectwoman, this is effectively what she did,” he said.
Raimondi’s projections suggest a preliminary BOS operating budget increase of 4.3%, with a 9.1% increase in operating capital, resulting in an overall increase of 4.5%. Those figures are early town-side projections, not an estimate of the eventual tax increase.
The discussion led to some frustration for Raimondi, however, when the other board members — apparently misinterpreting his stance on finding consensus and possibly a vote on a preliminary budget increase — said they weren’t ready to vote on his document as presented and before discussing additional needs.
Raimondi clarified that he wanted a discussion that night and a vote at a subsequent meeting, and that the board could add staffing requests and other priorities to his baseline projection.
“If we’re not going to actually pass this, why did I do this?” Raimondi said.
“If this board decides it doesn’t want to respond and provide a voice on budget guidance, I strongly disagree with that,” he said.
The other four BOS members, however, said they wanted to have more discussion on what number should be given to the Board of Finance — even as a preliminary number — and said they did not want it to undercut the needs and requests for bigger items.
“You did this all on your own, and then you’re asking all of us to commit to something we didn’t participate in or have a debate about, what should or shouldn’t be in the budget,” First Selectman Toni Boucher said.
“You’re literally deciding the budget before anybody sits down to talk to a department,” she said.
Raimondi disagreed, emphasizing that the baseline did not determine which additional requests the board could include.
“I did not speak with department heads … It was more high level based on what we know today … This is not envisioning any new employees. This does not envision taking away employees. It’s just, this is the way the ship is going and this is where it lands,” he said.
“The numbers here do not reflect my policy views,” emphasized Raimondi, who, as the former BOF chair, is an advocate of that board’s budget guidance process. “This reflects just my intellectual honesty of, if we don’t change anything, this is what the math shows.
The presentation noted that along with 72% of the overall budget centered on employee wages and benefits, the forecast reflected the addition of a bookkeeper role that was upgraded to an accountant, along with part-time payroll support relating to software transition at Town Hall. It also included a new human resources assistant director, which is a vacant role restructured from an HR specialist and benefits administrator. The move is part of a plan tied to current Chief Financial Officer Dawn Savo‘s new management of the Human Resources Department.
Raimondi’s budget projection, however, does not include two more firefighters beyond the four that were added over the past two budgets, two maintenance workers in the Department of Public Works that have been discussed, a new tax and assessment clerk, an additional full-time administrative assistant to support HR, Boucher and the yet-to-be-hired town administrator, and the restoration of a part-time social worker.
Editor’s note: While there has been no official confirmation of a named individual or hire, the BOS voted on Sept. 22 to extend an offer to a preferred candidate for the job of town administrator.
In the end, BOS members asked Raimondi to draw up some additional figures on new hires that might be considered, including additional Fire Department personnel. They plan to return to the discussion at their Oct. 5 meeting.
Selectman David Tatkow expressed some discomfort in having Raimondi do the work on the report, but Boucher emphasized that he did it in cooperation with herself and Savo.
“Dawn was very cooperative and very much appreciative of it,” Boucher said.
Tatkow said, however, he hoped there would be adequate bandwidth within Town Hall next year to be able to do this kind of work itself.
Raimondi again emphasized that his presentation was not meant to be any reflection on policy or planning within Town Hall. He said, however, that he did the work as part of an effort to get a better process in place for preliminary budget work.
“You guys appointed me here to do stuff like this,” he told the BOS. “I think this is really important that this Board of Selectmen and future of Selectmen do it. I know that that the finance department is incredibly overstretched right now, and so I just did it myself to get there.”
“This board talks a lot about … process, right? We’re trying to build a process,” he said. “Our budget guidance budget process is not good. It is not. It has not been good for the last couple of years. And one of the ways to fix that is to get ahead of it.”
Second Selectman Ross Tartell praised the work.
“It equips our administration to start to have a productive conversation with the Board of Finance,” he said.
“My understanding was this was a strategic move on our part to bring forth our voice in terms of our perspective,” Tartell said, agreeing that the BOS needed to be sure that any number it presented adequately incorporated a full picture of Town Hall needs.
In the next few months the Board of Finance will ask for both a town-side and a school-side budget presentation on respective FY28 budgets, with Boucher and Superintendent Kevin Smith making presentations on what they estimate their respective needs will be. The BOF will then arrive at what it deems are practical and reasonable increases as guidance for both the Board of Education and BOS budgets.
The BOF will strive to make its recommendations based on resident input, revenue projections and other factors. The hope will then be that when each board presents its final budget, it will propose increases at or below the BOF’s recommended guidance.
Last year, BOS members expressed degrees of frustration and disapproval with BOF budget guidance, instead suggesting that their recommendations should — at least to some degree — be made independently of what some called arbitrary restrictions placed by the BOF.
