EAST PROVIDENCE — The Rhode Island Supreme Court should not take up an appeal by the teachers’ union seeking to reverse a pay cut and forced employee contributions to health-care costs, according to written arguments the School Committee filed with the high court yesterday.

The School Committee maintained that the salary reductions, designed to save about $3 million, were the only way it could avoid deficit spending, which is prohibited by state law.

Without these cuts, the School Department would end the current fiscal year in the red by more than $9 million, according to supporting arguments filed by the City of East Providence.

The Supreme Court is expected to discuss in a conference tomorrow whether it will hear the union’s appeal of a ruling by Superior Court Judge Mark A. Pfeiffer.

Pfeiffer last week declined to stay a 5 percent rollback in teacher salaries, as well as payroll deductions equivalent to 20 percent of the cost of health-care premiums. The reductions went into effect Jan. 16.

The School Committee agrees with Pfeiffer’s position that union members will not suffer irreparable harm if they wait until the issue is decided by the state Labor Relations Board. The union, the East Providence Education Association, has filed a separate unfair labor practice charge with the board against the School Committee.

If the union prevails, it can recover lost wages, Pfeiffer has said.

In its appeal to the Supreme Court, the union has said that the issues in the case “cut to the very heart of collective bargaining in this state — whether a party required by state law to collectively bargain is permitted to abandon that process at will.”

The School Committee “believes it possesses such power, even though no tribunal has reviewed the legality of its action,” the union said in arguments filed with the Supreme Court last week.

The union continued, “Such a far-reaching decision, which will not only severely impact the East Providence teachers, but could also significantly affect the entire state collective bargaining community, should not be implemented absent a review of its legal foundation.”

The School Committee maintains that the law prohibiting deficit spending supersedes all others, citing a provision that says its terms stand “not withstanding any other provision of the general laws to the contrary.”

The union “remains free to propose an interim arrangement that it views as more palatable” for realizing the necessary $3 million in savings, according to the School Committee.

The last contract expired Oct. 31, and since then the School Committee has rejected a nonbinding arbitrator’s award, saying it would mean financial ruin. Teachers accepted the award, which would freeze current salaries for a year and grant raises of 2 percent and 3 percent in the second and third years, respectively.

The award also would require teacher contributions to health-insurance premiums ranging from 5 percent now to 15 percent in the third year. Unlike teachers elsewhere, those in East Providence do not pay any part of the premiums.

gmacris@projo.com