Hawaii, blessed as it is with year-round summer, is about to enter a wintry fiscal deep-freeze.

At the state and county budget offices, anticipated revenues are being projected at well below average levels. At Honolulu Hale, the current figures show an expected shortfall topping $400 million, a jaw-dropping figure.

It’s reached the point at which elected officials openly acknowledge that the budgetary axe is coming down, and that smaller government will certainly be the result.

Furloughs to reduce the largest cost center, labor expenses, are on the horizon, and a near horizon, at that.

But beyond the necessary across-the-board pay reductions, elected leaders and their staff — including that of Mayor-elect Rick Blangiardi — will be pressed to rethink how services could be delivered with the greatest efficiency and the least waste. Ideally, the incoming mayor would address his tense constituency and begin to outline his own financial plan.

In October, Gov. David Ige telegraphed the sobering forecast that tax receipts supporting state programs are 25% below where they need to be to support current government services.

“We have an annual budget deficit that we’re looking at between $1.3 and $1.5 billion every year,” Ige said at the time, “and clearly that’s not sustainable. So we are going to have to reduce the size of state government.”

That’s the undeniable imperative, and taxpayers are going to have to expect some curbs on services, for the foreseeable future.

And individual state agencies have relayed expectations of furloughs to their employees. The state Department of Human Services director on Sept. 21 sent a message to staff announcing a likely 10% furlough to take effect Dec. 1. Director Cathy Betts also said the furloughs could last for the next four fiscal years.

This, as state Rep. Joy Buenaventura rightly pointed out, will be “devastating.” Buenaventura chairs the House Human Services and Homelessness Committee, and she knows that the crushing economic recession of the ongoing pandemic has pushed thousands more people to the brink of poverty. So, delivery of key government services remains crucial.

Last week’s headline, however, dealt more with the challenges awaiting the City and County of Honolulu in the next fiscal year, starting in July.

Speaking before the Council’s Budget Committee on Wednesday, Manny Valbuena, acting Budget and Fiscal Services director, said a big part of the mammoth budget deficit, was a new item: setting aside at least $140 million for the operations and maintenance of the city’s controversial and long-overdue rail system.

Compounded largely by expected property-tax losses caused by the pandemic, the $400 million total deficit is a daunting barrier. Valbuena and Mayor Kirk Caldwell both said they are in discussions with Blangiardi and working on ways to narrow the funding gap.

What would help the most would be a new infusion in federal help, some form of extension of the CARES Act, a congressional aid package meant to offset the losses that started with pandemic shutdowns this spring, losses that have continued to mount.

In particular, local governments across the nation are facing a fiscal crisis similar to Hawaii’s and urgently need help, just to keep up with core services. Although these essential programs, including police, fire, parks and sewer services, are sure to be crippled by budgetary restrictions, political strains on Capitol Hill have made the outcome of stalled negotiations all but unpredictable.

Plainly, it’s time to go through the budget, line by line, and decide which programs could be reformulated to achieve the most critical objectives.

This likely will mean a wide-reaching, trickle-down effect, in both state and county agencies. For example, this likely will mean fewer, smaller contracts for nonprofits that handle many public services, organizations that will have to scramble in search of other funds.

And governments will have to crack down on their overtime pay expenditures. A number of agencies have struggled with this, but the most recent issue came to light last week in a report on the Honolulu Fire Department aired by the City Council.

The city’s Internal Control Division, part of Valbuena’s budget agency, conducted the review in response to allegations of OT claims and other misuses of city funds. This kind of oversight must intensify if the city is to rein in spending that’s nonessential, or even flatly wasteful.

There is reason to hope for a recovery that will replenish tax coffers and ease the spending restrictions. Tourism, which floats much of the economy, is coming back slowly.

Even more crucially, two effective vaccines are expected to start a long rollout late this year. As pent-up demand fuels consumer spending, an end to recession should come into view.

In the meantime, the waiting, hopeful public will have to expect a government that will be much more selective about what it can do.