Gov. Dannel P. Malloy's administration announced $50 million in new cuts in state aid to municipalities Thursday, including a $20 million reduction in education funding that local officials said could result in school layoffs.

The announcement comes as a bitter New Year's gift for financially hard-pressed cities and towns who are already halfway through their fiscal and school years. Administration officials said the cuts had to be made now to achieve the savings goals included in the current 2016-17 state budget.

The school aid cuts for Connecticut's 48 most distressed cities and towns, including Hartford, New Haven and Bridgeport, are capped at $250,000, and the funding reductions represent less than 1 percent of what those cities and towns are receiving in total state education aid.

Connecticut's wealthiest towns are taking the biggest hits in state school aid: Greenwich is losing more than $1.3 million, or 90.5 percent of its state education cost sharing money. Salisbury will see it's school funding reduced by 81.9 percent and Sharon will suffer a 76.3 percent cut.

A similar budget reduction plan was floated earlier this year in which education cost-sharing grants for 28 of the state's wealthies school districts would be eliminated with many others being reduced. Under the plan, pitched by Gov. Dannel P. Malloy, the funds for the 30 lowest-performing school districts would have been spared. It was never approved after intense criticism from legislators and school officials.

"This is really horrible timing," Danbury Mayor Mark Boughton, who is also president of the Connecticut Conference of Municipalities, said of the new state aid cuts. He said the fact these reductions are coming in the middle of a fiscal year means layoffs may be the only way many communities can immediately deal with the loss of state funding.

"Education is one of the most important things we do," Boughton said. "I was shocked to see that." Boughton said Danbury is losing $250,000 of the $31.5 million in state education cost sharing grants. "I'm going to have to tell our school superintendent he's going to have to cut $250,000 or start laying people off."

Malloy's budget chief, Benjamin Barnes, said in a letter to legislative leaders Thursday that the timing of the cuts has been dictated by the need to save as much money as possible before the state's current fiscal year ends June 30. He said the reductions were included as part of the budget.

"In order to realize the savings required by the enacted budget… it is necessary to act now," Barnes said in his letter. He said the cuts "will support our efforts to end the fiscal year… in balance."

Connecticut's state budget is now expected to end the fiscal year with a $42 million deficit. But the fiscal forecast for the coming budget year is far more grim, with an estimate of a $1.4 billion gap between projected spending and revenue.

In addition to the education cuts, Malloy's administration is planning on taking back $30 million in state aid for Local Capital Improvement Programs (known as LoCIP) that had been allocated by the legislature but not yet spent by municipalities. Those funds are used for such projects as roads, bridge or municipal building construction.

Barnes also wrote letters to municipal leaders in all 169 cities and towns to notify them of the cuts. "I apologize for any inconvenience this may cause local governments," he said in the letter.

Boughton said he understands "the ditch the state of Connecticut finds itself in, but it's not a new ditch. It's been there since 2010."

"I think everybody has to go on a spending diet," Boughton said. He added that the latest, unexpected cuts in state aid is "another example of the state not being able to deliver on what it has promised."