No Matter How You Slice It, Last Minute Cuts in State Aid for Wilton will Sting

By many accounts, 2016 was a tough year–and it only got tougher for towns all across Connecticut in the year’s final days. On Thursday, Dec. 29, the state budget office announced $50 million in cuts to municipal grants that originally had been earmarked for each CT town.

For Wilton, that news meant a loss of $315,336 in budget aid that town leaders had expected to get for the current fiscal year–broken out by grant types, that’s a cut of $202,441 to Wilton’s Education Cost Savings (ECS) grant, and a complete reduction of the expected amount for the Local Capital Improvement Program (LOCIP) grant of $112,895.

To put it in perspective, Wilton was originally slated to get $665,382 in ECS aid when the 2017 state budget was adopted in May–a number already drastically lower than the $1.2 million town officials thought they’d get when they started work on the FY2017 budget. Now the most recent round of cuts slashes the total ECS dollars Wilton will get to $462,941. Considering Wilton got $1.461 million from the state for the 2016 ECS grant, that’s a million-dollar difference year-to-year.

Town officials weren’t caught off guard, although they weren’t pleased with the news.

“Although it is frustrating to receive a reduction half way through the year, it is not a surprise,” first selectman Lynne Vanderslice told GMW. “It was common knowledge the current state budget was based on unrealistic revenue projections.”

Both grants had been budgeted within general revenues, and according to Vanderslice they’ll be offset by other unexpected revenue gains.

As a result the cuts aren’t expected to impact town services or school programs in FY2017. Board of Education chair Bruce Likly noted that the ECS grant gets delivered to the town coffers rather than the BoE; as for the LOCIP, it had been earmarked for Wilton’s road paving program, which Vanderslice said won’t need to change thanks to the other revenues offsetting any aid loses.

“Previously we were forecasting to be over budget in revenues due to collection of long delinquent property taxes and related interest and fees. Now those funds will offset these cuts meaning they will no longer be available to reduce FY2018 property taxes,” she said.

That means the cuts slice even deeper that just 2017, leaving less money for the town’s fund balance, and making an already tight upcoming town budget season look even more grim. That’s on top of the Board of Finance giving guidance to both the Board of Selectmen and the Board of Education to come in at 1.25-percent less than last year’s budget numbers.

Jeffrey Rutishauser, chair of the Bd. of Finance, agreed the cuts were “disappointing,” and that the BoF will work with the other town boards to figure out next steps.

“We will need to discuss within our Boards how to absorb the latest surprise revenue cuts from Hartford, in FY17 and/or FY18. That will be taken up at our next Board of Finance meeting,” he said.

Vanderslice warns there are likely further cuts down the road that will chip away at municipal aid, and that steps taken at the state level will continue to hit Wilton hard.

“We should expect and budget further cuts in municipal aid for FY2018 as again the State’s revenue projections are unrealistic. Of greater concern is the State pushing down more and more of their costs to the cities and towns. They are attempting to do this with the Department of Health proposal which would mandate an additional $1.4 million of spending by Wilton to support programs outside of Wilton. We can not afford this. The Governor and the Legislature owe it to the residents to finally and realistically deal with excessive spending,” she said.

Wilton’s state senator Toni Boucher (R-26th) didn’t mince words about the state cuts. In a press release following the announced cuts she released the following statement:

“The holidays are supposed to be a time of giving and promise. Instead, these drastic cuts to education funding in the middle of the fiscal year is another rotten apple from Governor Malloy’s bag of bad gifts. Last minute cuts to schools and $30 million freeze in money promised to municipalities continues a sadly predictable trend. The Governor is a Scrooge to our communities and children while playing Father Christmas to state employee unions. Happy New Year indeed!”