Connecticut’s social services safety net and its public colleges and universities took the brunt Wednesday of Gov. Dannel P. Malloy’s first effort to whittle down a $363 million state budget deficit.

The administration released $123 million worth of emergency cuts ordered by the governor, including nearly $70 million aimed at health care and social service agencies and $25 million more at public colleges and universities.

Technically, the governor used his emergency authority to slice $170 million off the books. But because about $47 million of the cuts announced Wednesday involved spending the administration had planned to cancel to meet miscellaneous savings targets built into the budget, the overall deficit shrank to about $240 million…read more