New Canaan’s legislative body last week voted in favor of increasing the first selectman’s salary while also calling for an explanation as to why the Board of Finance didn’t also recommend a cost-of-living adjustment or ‘CoLA’ for two other elected officials.
The Town Council during its regular meeting, held Sept. 17 in Town Hall and via videoconference, voted in favor of a 2.75% increase for the first selectman’s position for fiscal years 2026 and ‘27. Typically baked into the municipal budget, the increase must be approved by both funding bodies prior to the election on Nov. 4.
The Town Council’s discussion and two votes followed a unanimous recommendation by the Board of Finance. Yet the finance board did not recommend a similar CoLA for the town clerk or town treasurer. That left the Town Council divided on how to proceed—some members wanted to bounce all three salaries back to the finance board as a group, while others wanted to approve the first selectman increase and call for an explanation of why no similar raise was recommended for the other two elected positions, leading to a second vote (8-3 in favor) to get more information from the finance board about its decision. (Officials said at the meeting that the first selectman’s new salary would come to about $180,000 while the same 2.75% raise for the two other positions would total about $10,000 between them.)
“There are some very smart people on the Board of Finance and for whatever reasons they have chosen not to recommend CoLA increases for the town clerk and the town treasurer,” Council member Eric Thunem said. “I would like to know why and I want them to do some analysis and make a proposal to us that we can then look at and understand what their thinking is—rather than jump ahead of their thinking—and ask them the questions. I would like to work together with them to understand what their position is and then we make a decision.”
Thunem and Council Chair Michael Mauro, Vice Chairs Hilary Ormond and Cristina A. Ross, and members Luke Kaufman, Janet Fonss, Penny Young and Jennifer Zonis voted in favor of the request that the Board of Finance explain its thinking on the other two salaries. Council members Tom Butterworth, Maria Naughton and Kim Norton voted against, saying they preferred to send all three elected officials’ salaries back to the finance board in one lump. Council member Rita Bettino was absent.
Town Personnel Director Cheryl Pickering Jones said that two years ago the treasurer and town clerk salaries underwent 71.75% and 12.46% increases, respectively, while the first selectman position went up 5% after undergoing no increase for some time.
Naughton said the larger increases were due to low starting salaries.
Butterworth said that if the Town Council tells the Board of Finance “that we’re just going to wait for them to do something, then they never have to go public with what their analysis is.”
He added, “They haven’t so far.”
Nick Bamonte, a lawyer in the town attorney’s office, said that when such salary increases are not part of the regular municipal budget process, that both the Board of Finance and Town Council must approve them mid-term, though there’s nothing on the books saying which of those funding bodies must initiate the process or get the final vote.
Referring to a proposed 2.75% CoLA increase for the town clerk and town treasurer—the same figure reached in contract negotiations with municipal workers and given to department heads—Norton said, “I would be astounded if they would not approve that.”
“We’ve got two great town servants that do a great job for the town and I don’t know why we are spending all this time,” she said. “Nick, no disrespect to you—you’re a great lawyer—but we are paying for this advice right now and I don’t really know why we would have to do that.”
Ormond said she had “nothing philosophically right now against entertaining a recommendation from the Board of Finance for a CoLA increase for town clerk and treasure.”
“I simply don’t know,” she said. “And I would like to hear their [Board of Finance members’] recommendation because I actually do respect their opinion and I think they are very capable and I would like to know what their answer is, and I would like it to be on the record.”
The first selectman, Dionna Carlson, is seeking re-election in an uncontested race. (She was present at the Town Council meeting and addressed the legislative body briefly at various points during the meeting, though her comments were inaudible on the live broadcast and official recording because she wasn’t sitting at a microphone.)
[This article has been corrected to show which vote had an 8-3 tally.]