Flatto Delays Departure Date

First Selectman Ken Flatto now plans to leave office on May 3, nearly a week later than the date he stated in a letter to the town's Board of Selectmen last week.

Flatto said Thursday that he now planned to leave May 3 because he wanted to remain as first selectman through the adoption of a town budget and tax rate for the 2011-12 fiscal year. Flatto said the later date also works out better for Gov. Dannel Malloy's administration, where Flatto was hired as executive director of the state's Division of Special Revenue.

Fairfield Patch heard Flatto planned to have his last day on May 5, but Flatto in an interview on Thursday said that was not correct. "May 3," he said, adding that he planned to resign at midnight that evening so he was first selectman when the town's Board of Finance votes to set a tax rate for the next fiscal year on the evening of May 3. The Representative Town Meeting is scheduled to adopt a town budget for the 2011-12 fiscal year on the evening of May 2.

"This thing has gone back and forth. That's why I made the letter a tentative resignation," Flatto said of his letter to the Board of Selectmen in which he identified his last day as April 28.

But Flatto even left the door open in an interview on Thursday to not leaving at all. "Unless something really unexpected happens, this should be a final pending date of resignation, unless I wake up and a bombshell went off in my mind," Flatto said.

Flatto said leaving May 3 wouldn't affect Selectmen Sherri Steeneck's and James Walsh's consideration of Michael Tetreau, a Board of Finance member, as interim first selectman until the November election because the next Board of Selectmen's meeting isn't until May 4. Flatto said his later planned departure date, however, does keep Steeneck "waiting in the wings" a little longer. Steeneck will become first selectman immediately after Flatto resigns and remain first selectman until either she and Walsh agree on an interim first selectman, or, if they can't agree within 30 days after Flatto resigns, the question is put to a handful of elected Democrats in Fairfield.

Flatto said he received a phone call from Malloy's office on Wednesday, asking if he could delay his start date to May 5, and he decided to leave on May 3 after the 2011-12 town budget and tax rate are set. Flatto said he'd keep his last day as May 3 if Malloy's administration asks that his start date be delayed even further, to May 6 or 7.

Flatto's last day changed several times before he wrote the letter to Walsh and Steeneck identifying his last day as April 28.

"It was not a grand design," Flatto said of the evolution in his planned departure date, though he added he was glad he could speak as first selectman at the RTM's budget meeting Monday night and the RTM's budget vote May 2. He said it would have been awkward if he were not first selectman and RTM members had a question about how his recommended $264 million town budget was compiled.