The latest information from the state house (April 14 at 2 p.m.) indicates that in the 2016-2017 State Budget, we will have our entire Education Cost Sharing (ECS) funding amount of $1,574,259 cut to zero.

While ECS is meant to supplement our education system, it is directed to our General Fund, so in addition to the increase in our health insurance of $1,500,000 for next fiscal year, we are facing a cut of more than that to our General Fund, creating a gap of more than $3 million in next year’s budget. That amount is more than double the negative financial impact of both hurricanes Irene and Sandy.

While we have worked to mitigate the effects if the insurance hike, we need to take some drastic steps in the short term to keep our 2016-’17 budget intact.

On April 15, I asked all department heads to freeze all non-essential expenditures, including overtime wherever possible. In addition, I asked them to go through their 2016-’17 budget and make reductions to operating expenditures.

We are encumbering funds for all known commitments so that we can forecast balances for June 30. From here, we will establish a reserve fund of all frozen expenditures that are returned at the end of 2015-’16, and use them to supplement 2016-’17 cuts.

This will be a very difficult time for us in the short term, but working together, we will lessen the impact of these drastic cuts.

First Selectman Tom Banisch

Madison