First Selectman Highlights Fiscal Moves In 'State Of The Town' Address

FAIRFIELD, CT — During a 30-minute "State of the Town" address before the Representative Town Meeting on Monday, Fairfield First Selectman Bill Gerber discussed a myriad of fiscal matters highlighting the town's overall financial strength.

"To state the obvious: The People of Fairfield pay for services they receive from their Town government," Gerber said in prepared remarks. "The People deserve a government that faces issues head on, does not put off difficult decisions, and is not paralyzed by conflict avoidance. The People deserve a government that performs exacting analysis before investing their money in projects and initiatives."

Gerber highlighted how the town has moved hundreds of million of dollars into more fiscally advantageous accounts to reduce risk and improve liquidity, and implemented tighter financial controls.

Click here to view a video of Gerber's presentation.

Additionally, the town is implementing processes to better analyze capital improvement projects, address the town's deteriorating sewer system and mitigate flooding issues, and work to make town streets safer.

"Successful capital projects depend on rigorous financial oversight, good project management, andmaximizing funding sources," Gerber said.

Below is the full text of First Selectman Bill Gerber's 2025 State of the Town address:

Members of the RTM, Distinguished Guests, and Fellow Citizens:

I have been in office for 14 months and it is a tremendous honor to be here tonight giving my second annual State of the Town address.

I feel fortunate to be working with so many talented and dedicated employees and volunteers. There are too many to name, but thank you all for your commitment to serving the Town. Fairfield relies on your skills, experience, flexibility, and teamwork. A special shout out to those on the front lines-including first responders, public works employees, dispatch center staff, and teachers and, in my office, Jen Carpenter, who treats everyone with respect and without whom the Office of the First Selectman would not function efficiently.

Fairfield is, without a doubt, a great town. Don’t just take it from me. Take it from the rating agencies- Standard & Poor’s, Moody’s and Fitch- who have once again reaffirmed Fairfield’s AAA debt rating. Take it from investors who want to own Fairfield’s debt, as evidenced by the high participation in our annual bond offering at favorably low interest rates. Take it from homeowners, home buyers and renters. Take if from parents whose children receive an excellent education. Take it from the crowds enjoying themselves in our thriving downtown area on a Friday night. Not many people are selling, and those looking to buy or rent are making a big financial commitment in order to be in Fairfield.

However, we all know housing and capital markets can be volatile, so my administration must be committed to ensuring we do what we can to make Fairfield’s success sustainable for the long term. Doing so requires a continual commitment to maximizing the return on investment in Fairfield, made by the residents of Fairfield: investments in homes; investments in local businesses; investments in education, and investments in time… the many, many hours you spend as volunteers.

To state the obvious: The People of Fairfield pay for services they receive from their Town government. The People deserve a government that faces issues head on, does not put off difficult decisions, and is not paralyzed by conflict avoidance. The People deserve a government that performs exacting analysis before investing their money in projects and initiatives.

The father of the quality movement, W. Edwards Deming, wrote about the principles for businesses to consistently improve quality and productivity. There is no reason that a government cannot follow these same principles. Not every investment will pan out exactly as planned, but we can reduce risk through proactively implementing rigorous process improvement.

Not everyone welcomes change, but as your First Selectman, the buck stops with me. Taking criticism is part of my job. We do read and assess the criticism we receive, but please understand that every initiative has its supporters and detractors. In fact, I can’t recall a single decision we’ve made over the past year that somebody, somewhere wasn’t opposed to. In the end, maximizing the return on investment for Fairfield must be part of our Administration’s DNA.

In that pursuit, my most important role as First Selectman is to identify strengths, weaknesses and opportunities in the way the Town delivers services, and to leverage those strengths, address the weaknesses, and seize the opportunities. In the next 25 minutes, I’ll walk you through examples of how that’s being done in our administration.

Cash Management Risk

I’ll begin with a weakness we identified early on: Cash management risk.

At times, Fairfield had as much as $148 million in uninsured cash deposits at a regional bank. When I learned this, I was appalled. I lived through the 2008 financial crisis when my colleagues and I couldn’t get our relationship manager at Lehman Brothers to pick up the phone as markets were imploding.

Fairfield also had over $130 million invested in an expensive portfolio managed by a mid-sized broker-dealer. That account included relatively illiquid bonds, many of which were thinly-traded odd lots with wide bid-ask spreads.

Uninsured cash and illiquid investments: How could this happen? A lack of understanding of risk? Insufficient oversight? Financial institutions willing to expose Fairfield to unnecessary risk and cost for their own benefit? Whatever the reason, we knew we had to take immediate action.

Interim CFO David Becker and I, with the help of current Pension Board Chair, Ken Brachfeld, agreed that, when it comes to Town funds, our priorities must be: First, risk. Investment risk for a municipality must be very, very low. Second, liquidity. Liquidity must be very high. In a distant third place is yield.

To meet those priorities, we have transitioned our cash to a laddered portfolio of U.S. treasuries in custody accounts at Charles Schwab and Fidelity Investments. The balance of cash needed for operations is under an IntraFi multibank FDIC insured-deposit sweep product.

We transferred most of our broker-dealer bond portfolio to a custody account at Fidelity Investments. We are letting this portfolio mature to avoid taking losses on sales, with interest and cash proceeds reinvested in US Treasuries.

Moving this money ruffled some feathers; there was a short period of relationship lobbying and we took some pot shots. But this money belongs to The People of Fairfield and our Administration works for Fairfield, not the other way around.

Financial Controls, Reporting and Oversight, and Ethics

The next thing I want to talk about is financial controls, reporting and oversight, and ethics.

Tom Harris recently joined our Administration as CFO. As I’ve said many times, a Town the size of Fairfield needs a Chief Fiscal Officer with the credentials, technical and personal skills to lead and mentor a group of hard-working finance professionals, and to provide them the tools and focus to make this a high-performing finance department. In a search for that person, I was not willing to compromise. Tom is a CPA/MBA with significant corporate and not-for-profit financial executive experience, and he has hit the ground running.

I would like to give a special shout out to Caitlin Bosse, our Controller who took on additional responsibilities while maintaining her usual command over all of our reporting requirements; and to David Becker who, as interim Chief Financial Officer, took on many finance responsibilities, including attending the multitude of board and commission meetings held at night.

Our Administration has made another change to emphasize and strengthen internal financial controls. We have initiated monthly meetings led by Connie Saxl, our Internal Auditor, to review outstanding audit findings. To strengthen the independence of our internal audit function, I have asked the Charter Revision Commission to consider implementing a reporting line from our Internal Auditor directly to the Board of Finance or its Audit Sub-Committee.

With all of the issues regarding employee ethics and standards of conduct in recent years, I was surprised when starting this job to find the anonymous reporting hotline utilized by the Town did not automatically forward submissions to the Ethics Commission. Instead, they were directed to the Town Attorney and multiple Town Administration personnel.

Christine Brown, my Chief of Staff, took the lead on initiatives to enhance Town standards of conduct and ethics. She worked with our Director of IT Dave Kelley to ensure submissions are automatically forwarded to the Ethics Commission and the Human Resources Department only. Christine also spearheaded an effort with the Town Attorney, RTM members, Human Resources Department personnel and a resident expert on ethics, Jane Biagini, to pull together various requirements and guidelines into one comprehensive Ethics Policy.

Capital projects management

Also related to financial stewardship is the way we manage our capital projects.

For a municipality of our size, there is no greater area of risk and complexity than large capital projects, and Fairfield has approximately $500 million dollars of them listed on our long-term plan. These include building renovations, HVAC installations, bridges, tide gates, sewer pipes and pump stations, roads and sidewalks… much of this infrastructure is necessary for Fairfield’s long-term sustainability.

Successful capital projects depend on rigorous financial oversight, good project management, and
maximizing funding sources.

A basic requirement is knowing the up-to-date and accurate financial status of these projects, which is something that has been elusive in Fairfield for years. Financial Analyst/Manager Sabrina Bernardi is doing an extraordinary amount of excellent work to clean up and maintain Fairfield’s capital projects schedule. We now have a clearer picture of our needs, timing and funding requirements.

By transitioning to a project management approach to capital projects, we’ve leveraged the different experiences and strengths of Town staff, and freed up our engineers for high-value engineering work. Project managers can focus on consistent, disciplined project oversight, quality and cost control, and communications. Within just a few months, our project managers have found ways to save Fairfield money by analyzing, questioning and negotiating quotes and change order requests, and by performing certain functions in-house that would otherwise be outsourced at greater cost. Under the supervision of Eli Ghazal, our project managers Beata Orson, Wendy Fok and Troy Deering are helping to manage projects ranging from rebuilding our sewer system to rehabbing our police and fire stations.

Our new full-time grants manager, Greg Reilly, is filling a major hole in our administration, meeting with our engineers, project managers, and other department heads to understand Town priorities, so he can focus on the most relevant funding opportunities. Our hiring of Greg opens up potential to apply for larger grants that often require an extraordinary amount of administrative work.

A deteriorating sewer system

Now let’s move to everyone’s favorite topic: sewers.

I’ve spent a lot of time this year talking about Fairfield’s old and deteriorating sewer infrastructure. It is nearing its peak flow capacity, after being neglected over decades. Fifty percent of flow capacity is at times taken up by groundwater infiltration. Politicians tend to ignore infrastructure that is out of sight, but a sewer system exceeding capacity will ultimately translate into a stagnant grand list, health hazards and environmental fines.

Shortly after taking office, I asked John Marsilio, our Head of Public Works, to take responsibility for turning this situation around, reversing the previous hands-off policy towards the Town’s Water Pollution Control Facility (WPCF), which manages our sanitary sewer system. We hired Michelle Gore, a Stanford and RPI-educated environmental engineer with a rich regulatory background to run our WPCF.

Michelle is working to formulate a comprehensive, long-term plan to rebuild our system with the capacity to safely service our homes, businesses and municipal buildings in compliance with regulations. In addition to John Marsilio and Michelle Gore, a special thank you to Matt Manchisi, a civil engineer, for the work he does as WPCA Chairman.

Vulnerability to flooding

Other places we are vulnerable in Town is in coastline and riverine systems.

Our coastline was made more vulnerable by FEMA’s order to lower the beach around Penfield Pavilion to an elevation of eight feet, down from eleven. The deadly floods in our state this past August reminded the many Fairfielders who live near the Rooster River of their own flooding risk.

We need a current and comprehensive flood and erosion resiliency plan for the entire Town. One previous plan from the Army Corps of Engineers would cost about a billion dollars today—one of several partial, outdated, unvetted or impractical white papers that describe plans for flood resilience strategies.

I receive emails all the time with emphatic recommendations that sound so simple: “just build a berm down Fairfield Beach Road,” “raise Fairfield Beach Road by three feet,” or “buy giant inner tubes and fill them with water to block storm surges.” One thing I have learned is that nothing about the movement of water during a storm is simple. Another is that people who think it’s simple are likely to be wrong and, to avoid adding to our flood problems, its best for Fairfield to invest in, and listen to, advice of coastal and riverine flood resiliency experts.

Our Administration is taking a big step forward, thanks to the tenacity of Becky Bunnell and Dick Dmochowski from Fairfield’s Flood Prevention, Climate Resilience and Erosion Control Board, as well as availability of American Rescue Plan (ARPA) funds. We recently awarded a contract to Weston & Sampson, in partnership with RACE Coastal Engineering, to develop a comprehensive master flood resiliency plan for Fairfield. From this, we expect to get conceptual recommendations that will lead to detailed designs and implementation.

Safety issues within our rights-of-way

Now let’s talk about one of our residents’ most frequently mentioned concerns: roadway safety. One of my priorities, during the ten years I served as a member of our Representative Town Meeting, has been to implement systems and infrastructure to make our roads safer for walking, biking and driving. We have had too many traffic-related deaths and near-misses, and too much fear of walking and biking owing to unsafe rights-of-way.

We have made a lot of progress laying the groundwork for improvements this year, but are still in the beginning stages. While on the RTM, I wrote the “Safe and Livable Streets” ordinance in collaboration with Fairfield Bike-Ped advocates Sarah Roy, Jeff Randolph, and Bill Pollack, with inputs from other traffic planning experts in Connecticut. It lays out a “complete streets” framework for moving towards safer streets. This year, we added some urgency to our commitment by signing on to the Vision Zero pledge, with a goal of eliminating traffic fatalities in Fairfield by 2035.

The rollout of this framework will be increasingly efficient as we develop in-house design and construction capabilities under the expertise of Civil Engineer Megha Jain and General Supervisor of Streets and Highways Jim Carney.

Efficiency in executing improvements under the Safe and Livable Streets Ordinance and meeting our Vision Zero goals will get a big boost from our new local traffic authority (LTA). The state mandated LTA currently falls under the Police Commission’s responsibilities in Fairfield, but will be transferred to the Fairfield Traffic Authority (FTA) by February 16th. This change was enabled by last year’s amendments to state law, and we have been told Fairfield is the first jurisdiction to take advantage of this change, which required enactment of a new ordinance by the RTM.

Tonight, I am announcing the founding voting members of the FTA, appointed in accordance with Section 39B-2 of our Town Code. They are:

1. Fairfield Chief of Police, Robert Kalamaras, and his appointed designees Captain Hector Irizarry and Lieutenant Jeremy Zdru;
2. Fairfield Police Commissioner Kevin Kiley;
3. Fairfield Complete Streets Coordinator, Senior Civil Engineer Megha Jain;
4. Fairfield Town Zoning Dept. Assistant Planning Director Emmeline Harrigan
5. Fairfield Engineering Manager Bill Hurley;
6. Fairfield Parks & Recreation Director Anthony Calabrese; and
7. Resident Frank Petise, Transportation Bureau Chief for the City of Stamford

Performance of our 911 regional dispatch center

I’m going to speak now about our 911 Regional Dispatch Center.

When David Becker started with our administration, he made me aware that, from his discussions with Police Chief Kalamaras, our Fairfield County Regional Dispatch Center (FCRD), a collaboration between Fairfield, Westport and New Canaan, was not performing as envisioned. After careful analysis with the Chief and his staff, we agreed the Center truly needed highly specialized leadership and a different staffing model to meet the needs, not only of these three towns, but also municipalities that could potentially be added in the future.

Through a careful search of viable candidates, and coordination with Westport, we were very fortunate to bring on board an outstanding professional, Joe Gaudett, as the new FCRD Director. With over 40 years of experience in law enforcement and telecommunications/technology consulting (most recently as the Director of the City of Stamford’s Emergency Communications Center) Joe has made great progress in moving the FCRD towards the level of service envisioned.

Town Legal Support

At the beginning of this address, I said that our administration would seize opportunities. I knew that a town the size and complexity of Fairfield requires integrated, comprehensive and timely legal advice. Too many important matters can be missed, or minimized. As an example, a utility company that wants to take permanent easements on private property, diminishing property values and scarring Fairfield’s viewscape for the foreseeable future. Or a contractor that, instead of diluting and clearing contaminated soil, creates a massive contaminated fill pile.

I was determined not to hire a sole practitioner or small partnership as Town Attorney, but instead find a larger firm with significant resources, multiple areas of expertise, an institutional reputation, and quality control. It would be hard to overstate the positive impact of hiring a firm like Cohen and Wolf, with Principal Phil Pires as our Town Attorney. In my and many others’ opinions, it has been a game-changer for Fairfield’s approach to legal services.

Opportunities for Enhanced Communications

I saw another opportunity, this one to address Fairfield’s growing complexity by professionalizing communications.

My predecessor increased communications from Town Hall through a regular email update to a broad audience. I saw an additional opportunity to expand on this by professionalizing the communications function in a way befitting a town the size and complexity of Fairfield. Initially, I received some public criticism for hiring a Communications Director but now I hear frequent compliments. Under Lisa Clair, the press, our residents, universities, organizations, and Town departments have all benefitted from a consistent, accessible and professional point of contact.

Lisa coordinates several important public relations initiatives. In addition to bringing together a diverse group of parties trying to stop United Illuminating from erecting its massive monopoles in Fairfield, she has developed a committee of first responders, schools and health department staff, and bike-pedestrian advocates to form the Fairfield Safe Streets Alliance. That Alliance will soon launch its public service campaign promoting safe driving, walking and biking.

Lisa developed topic-driven notification emails for specific districts in response to residents’ needs for information on hyperlocal issues. Along the theme of localizing communications, a special shout out to Chief of Staff Christine Brown, Constituent Relation Coordinator Paula Tommins and Lisa Clair for developing what I hope will be a new tradition of regular constituent coffees/Q&A meetups. We have had two well-attended coffees so far and plan to hold one for each RTM district this year.

Grand list growth

Many of the issues I’ve discussed so far are dependent on funding, so let’s talk about how Fairfield is funded, beginning with the Grand List.

What is the Grand List?

Fairfield’s Grand List is the sum total of the value of property. It grows mainly from the following: (1) new development, (2) redevelopment, and (3) real estate revaluation.

The first two, new development and redevelopment, can increase the grand list, with the effect of spreading municipal budget funding across more real property, decreasing the average tax paid by individual property owners. The third, revaluation, shifts the funding of the Town budget between property owners more equitably.

Every five years, the State of Connecticut requires municipalities to revalue properties within their jurisdictions. 2025 is the year Fairfield must complete this work, and the results will be incorporated in our fiscal year 2026-27 mill rate calculation.

What should we expect next year? Well, about 50 Connecticut municipalities underwent a “reval” in 2023 for the fiscal year 2024-25. On average, the mill rates of these 50 towns decreased by about 19%, driven by significantly higher assessed property values.

It is no secret that real estate values in Fairfield have increased substantially, and assuming current market conditions hold, we too should expect a big increase in our Grand List and a reduction in our mill rate. As mentioned, this will shift the funding of the Town budget between property owners more equitably in fiscal year 2026-27.

Fairfield’s grand list is currently about $12 billion. This year we are expecting an increase of less than ½ of one percent, representing a modest amount of development that will not materially decrease the average tax paid by individual property owners.

Some people say “grow the grand list to reduce our taxes”. The truth is that some of the largest contributors to our grand list in recent years have been large apartment complexes. Others say “we are developing too fast”, and “we are ruining the charm of our Town and straining our infrastructure”. In this debate, we need to focus on the facts. One fact is that cost increases – including wage increases--exist.

There is no more important topic I’m addressing tonight than the following: While we strive for greater efficiencies to offset cost increases long-term, there is no magical way to pay for these increases without eventually cutting services, growing the grand list, and/or raising taxes.

Ultimately, we must strive to find the right balance. The only logical choice I see is a balanced approach to development now that we have filed for an 8-30g moratorium. Once approved we will have four years to achieve enough new points for our second moratorium (which would last for five more years). It is too risky for Fairfield to reject every affordable housing development during this period, leaving us exposed once again to zoning overrides when our moratorium expires.

If we as a community plan properly for development, we have the best chance to control our own destiny. That is “local control.”

Taxes

How does this all translate into taxes?

Last year, even with low grand list growth, we were able to keep our mill rate increase to only 1.42%, putting us in the lowest quartile of all municipalities in Connecticut not implementing real estate revaluations. The modest amount of grand list growth from development this year means that there will not be a substantial gain in revenue coming from new properties.

We have a great school system, and it represent 60% of our total budget. We have already seen the Superintendent of School’s proposed budget increase of 6.45% (equating to a $14.2 million increase) so we know this will be a very challenging budget process. We are aware of recent inflationary pressures and we understand that new collective bargaining agreements have brought wages up to market. Yes, we agree this was necessary to ensure we can hire and retain the good employees Fairfield needs and deserves. But we are also cognizant that many of our residents cannot pay significantly higher taxes. Our Administration will be working with every department to find ways to make this year’s budget increase reasonable.

I would like to conclude with this: As we move forward into 2025 and select the projects, services and initiatives needed for our Town, I reiterate my commitment to leading a Town government that faces issues head on, does not put off difficult decisions, and consistently improves productivity. I will continue to leverage our strengths, address our weaknesses, and seize our opportunities. This is your Town, and your government.

Fairfield is amazing, with people from different backgrounds and cultures, unique stories to tell and tremendous contributions to make. We sometimes have different points of view but, in the end, value the same things. Let’s continue to strive towards making Fairfield a place where people check their preconceptions at the Town line.

I am proud to lead us forward. Thank you.