Branford Leaders Worry State May Pull Funds for $90 Million Middle School Project

By Jack Kramer, Correspondent

BRANFORD, CT – You’d have to be living under a rock to have not heard about the state of Connecticut’s budget problems – and how that may impact towns such as Branford.

And some Branford officials are worried those monetary woes may have an impact on the biggest and costliest project the town has ever planned – the nearly $90 million Frances Walsh Intermediate School remodeling project.

At the most recent Representative Town Meeting, First Selectman Jamie Cosgrove was questioned by RTM members as to whether the state’s portion of the huge project – nearly $35 million – was in jeopardy due to the state’s projected $1.5 million budget deficit.

The town’s share of the school construction project is approximately $58 million.

Cosgrove told the RTM that if there were any cuts in the state’s part of the costs the school project “would be brought back to the appropriate bodies for discussion.”

Those bodies, the first selectman said, would be the RTM and the Board of Finance.

Branford recently saw its education grant from the state cut by $203,000, as part of the state’s continuing efforts to cut into the deficit.

Branford was slated to receive approximately $2.4 million in education funding this year; instead it will receive $2.2 million.

RTM Minority Leader Chris Wilson told Cosgrove he was “concerned about funding” for the middle school project, which is slated to be completed in 2019.

RTM moderator Dennis Flanigan noted that Gov. Dannel P. Malloy made it clear in his recent speech to first selectman and mayors who make up the Connecticut Council of Small Towns (COST) that the “so-called well-to-do towns’’ on the shoreline, such as Branford, were likely to be impacted by future state budget cuts.

Photo credit: Jack Kramer