A new fiscal year begins July 1, but there is no indication Connecticut has turned a corner. On Thursday, the Malloy administration assigned nearly $130 million in savings targets to help balance the new state budget.

So the constant struggle to keep the state budget in balance continues, creating instability that discourages businesses from investing for fear of new taxes on the horizon, social agencies unable to address the problems they see plaguing their communities, and the retired or nearly so contemplating leaving.

Democrats, in control of the governorship and both legislative chambers, have tried stabilizing the financial situation with big tax increases both in Gov. Dannel P. Malloy’s first year after his 2010 election and again in the first year of his second term.

To be fair, those elected leaders have also tried to fix things by shrinking government. At the end of May, reports the Connecticut Mirror, there were 23,866 full-time executive branch positions, down 2.8 percent from a year ago, down 6.3 percent from when Malloy first took office.

Our major saltwater state beaches, where thousands throng to escape the summer heat, will have no lifeguards on Mondays and Tuesdays. Park campgrounds will close on Labor Day weekend, rather than by Columbus Day, meaning would-be visiting campers will spend their dollars elsewhere come foliage season.

The state’s chief medical examiner and municipal leaders fight over who will be responsible for handling the bodies of the unclaimed dead.

At a time when it is apparent to all that heroin addiction and associated overdose deaths are health crises, waiting lists for beds in substance abuse treatment programs grow longer because of state budget cuts, the Judicial Branch alone announcing a 40 percent cut in treatment programs that are an alternative to incarceration.

None of this makes logical sense. It is like cutting off a limb to lose weight. It works, but undermines the long-term health and prosperity of the patient.

Yet the cuts are almost certainly not enough.

Connecticut finished the 2015-16 fiscal year with a $333 million deficit, exhausting all but $83 million of its Rainy Day Fund, leaving it around 0.5 percent of operating costs. Comptroller Kevin Lembo has said a healthy reserve would be 15 percent.

Moody’s Investors Service sees a state that is boxed in.

“With weak tax collections likely to carry over into fiscal 2017, the state has limited flexibility to maintain a balanced budget,” warned the Wall Street credit rating agency on Monday.

Fixed costs — required pension payments, contractually mandated state retiree health plan contributions, and debt service — account for 25 percent of state spending. The number continues to grow, crowding out other needs, like lifeguards, dealing with the unclaimed dead, and addressing the heroin crisis.

To his credit, Malloy, more than any other Connecticut governor before him, has pushed to make up for a lack of pension savings, ignored by prior administrations in favor of short-term priorities.

Tax hikes would be self-defeating, hurting business investment and driving more high-income, high-taxed individuals from the state.

Significant concessions from state labor unions are necessary to achieve big savings and better align benefits, both now and in retirement, with those found in the private sector. The unions, with a benefit package locked in through 2020, have not budged, even in the face of significant layoffs. Efforts must continue to persuade labor leaders that it is in the interests of their members and their state that they return to the negotiation table.

In neighboring Rhode Island, Democratic Gov. Gina Raimondo achieved significant savings through tough negotiations and the threat of unilateral action if state unions and retirees would not cooperate. As a result, public retirees’ annual increases were suspended and state workers agreed to trade in part of their defined-benefit pension plan for a 401(k)-style plan, bearing investment risk as most in the private sector do.

While Malloy is not up for election, all state House and Senate seats are. Candidates need to bring their ideas forward on how they would address the fiscal problems and particularly Connecticut’s fixed costs. And the voting public needs to pay attention to these often-ignored races and recognize the critical decisions those they are sending to Hartford will have to make.