Gov. Dannel P. Malloy has repeatedly talked about the shared sacrifice of everyone in the state to help pull Connecticut out of its projected $3.5 billion budget deficit.
But in his first full day in office, Malloy said Thursday that he hopes that cities and towns can avoid any cuts in educational cost-sharing funds from the state.
"It is my desire to do that - to hold communities harmless,'' Malloy told reporters in his Capitol office. "That's a goal that I have in preparing a budget to send to the legislature. ... There are many goals I have. We're going to try to accommodate all of them. That's a very important one.''
The state currently sends more than $2.5 billion annually to cities and towns, and the biggest single grant is the educational cost-sharing money that is allocated to all 169 municipalities.
"It is a big nut. It's a high priority,'' Malloy said. "We're looking at it. I'm going to do everything in my reasonable power to do that.''
But Malloy did not rule out other potential cuts in other categories of state funds for cities and towns.
"I haven't said they will be held harmless of any cuts,'' Malloy said. "Everything is on the table. Everyone is invited to the table.''
Malloy has opposed cutting education money to the cities and towns for months, but now he has the power to help stop it after being sworn in Wednesday afternoon as the state's 88th governor. He spent four hours Monday - before the inauguration - with his budget team and is starting to make the decisions that will be unveiled February 16 in his budget address. He stressed, though, that the key decisions have not been made and the evolving budget is "a work in progress.''
Malloy did not reveal the nuts and bolts about potential tax increases and budget cuts that are expected.
"We're just not ready to answer in greater detail what shared sacrifice means,'' he said.