Woodbury closes 2015–2019 bond accounts, flags roughly $494,000 variance tied to recordkeeping failures

WOODBURY, Conn. — The Woodbury Board of Selectmen formally moved to close the town’s 2015 and 2019 bond accounts at its June 23 meeting, while first selectman Paul Zulpa warned that municipal records show a remaining variance of roughly $494,000 rooted in poor recordkeeping.

“The $494,000 variance represents a breakdown in financial controls and highlighted a critical vulnerability in the Town's ERP system and financial management processes,” Zulpa said as he read a memo that the board entered into the record. The memo and attached ledger show bond expenditures and ledger classifications that the town says are incomplete, inconsistently maintained or commingled among bond, grant and donation accounts.

Why it matters: The town says all bond-funded projects themselves were completed, but inadequate documentation prevents a full, line-by-line reconciliation of how funds moved through the general ledger. The attachment to the memo reports total bond expenditures of $7,468,807 against combined bond funding of $6,975,000, producing an overage shown as $493,807 in the ledger summary; Zulpa’s memo summarizes the gap as approximately $494,000.

What the board will do next: Zulpa said the town’s chief fiscal officer will work with auditors from King & King to determine and post the journal entries necessary to formally close the FY2015–2019 bond reporting. The town plans to shift focus from reconstructing past transactions to strengthening controls, including selecting a new ERP system and improving reporting and record-retention standards.

The memo named staff members who worked on reconciliation efforts and noted that a planned third-party forensic audit was not pursued due to cost constraints. It also cited an extended vacancy in the Fiscal Officer role as a complicating factor. The document does not allege misappropriation and states there is no evidence funds were diverted from the unassigned fund balance; rather, it calls the issue “a breakdown in financial controls.”

What remains unresolved: Because supporting documentation is incomplete for multiple years, the town concluded that further reconciliation is unlikely to change the outcome and recommended closing the bond accounting while implementing process improvements moving forward.

Next steps for residents and oversight: The board’s stated actions are administrative — engaging auditors to record closing entries and implementing system and process changes. Any further substantive audit findings or recommended policy changes will be reported to the Board of Selectmen and, if required, to the Board of Finance.