With the State of Connecticut facing roughly a $1.4 billion budget gap in the next fiscal year and little word on what funding cuts municipalities will have to face, Madison officials are getting ready for what could be an unpredictable year.

The town is in the midst of preparing the 2017/2018 fiscal year budget, with budget workshop meetings and public hearings scheduled over the next several months. However, at the Board of Finance (BOF) meeting on Jan. 18, board members discussed the surprise midyear budget cuts that were handed down just before the new year, leaving Madison to mitigate an unexpected $269,102 cut in state aid.

On Dec. 29, 2016, the governor’s budget director sent a letter to legislators announcing $50 million in midyear cuts, a move the letter said was necessary to cover a hole in the adopted state budget. The cuts break down to a $20 million cut to Education Cost Sharing (ECS) grant money—a program that serves as the state’s primary financial resource to help municipalities run their schools—and $30 million cut to the Local Capital Improvement Program (LoCIP)—a program used to help fund local construction projects. Within the cuts, Madison lost $109,978 in LoCIP funding and $159,124 in ECS grant money.

BOF Chair Joe MacDougald said he would like to see both the Board of Education (BOE) and the town plan and share how they are going to handle the cuts soon.

“At some point we are going to want to hear from the town and the BOE as to what they do to adjust for the cuts,” he said. “That is going to be mixed into our budget conversation, so it is going to be a little bit complicated.”

For the town, adjusting for the cuts means putting more focus on revenues, according to First Selectman Tom Banisch. With state funding on the decline, Banisch said all revenue options need to be discussed.

“Last year I tried to introduce this as part of the conversation to say, ‘Let’s take into account all of the things that impact our budget, so when we set the Mill Rate, we are not setting it arbitrarily high because we haven’t taken into account the fact that we are going to receive revenues to offset some of the expenses that we know we have to incur,’” he said.

Holding the line on taxes isn’t easy with state funding on the decline and contractual obligations increasing, according to Banisch, but he said the town is looking at many ways, even small ways, to raise revenues.

“We have instituted a bunch of fees—license fees, permit fees, things like that—that we didn’t have before, but are common to every other town,” he said. “Those are starting to now register on our books. Is it going to be a million dollars? No, it is not, but it is going to be some number and say it is $100,000, well then that makes up the $100,000 we lost in LoCIP.”

While Madison is once again facing an uncertain funding situation with the state, this year Banisch said the town will not have the compounding problem of a health insurance increase. Last year BOE and town health insurance went up a combined 13.2 percent, which accounted for nearly half of the approximately $2 million budget increase approved at referendum.

“We had a better experience rate this year,” he said. “There is always going to be some kind of an increase, but it is nowhere near last years. It is more in line with a normal annual increase.”

Budget workshops and presentations will be held throughout January and February. Check www.madisonct.org for meeting dates and times.