PROVIDENCE — The City of East Providence is seeking Superior Court permission to join in legal arguments against the teachers union, which has asked the court to reverse a salary cut that would go into effect Jan. 16.

City officials say it is particularly urgent that they be granted intervener status in light of a cumulative $9.3-million deficit projected for the schools and the possibility that the city is facing bankruptcy.

“It’s worse than broke,” Mayor Joseph S. Larisa, Jr. said at a City Council meeting Tuesday night.

“If we were to pay all of [the school district’s still accumulating deficit], we would need a 20-percent tax increase at least in this economy,” he said.

Yesterday, Assistant City Solicitor Matthew T. Oliverio said, “We can’t sit by idly.”

“We have to intervene and advance very critical arguments” that Judge Mark A. Pfeiffer must consider before he decides whether to grant the relief sought by the teachers, Oliverio said.

The School Committee is counting on a salary rollback of about 5 percent and payroll deductions to cover 20 percent of the cost of health-insurance premiums in a plan to save nearly $3 million by the end of the city’s current fiscal year, on Oct. 31.

“We laud the School Committee for their position,” Oliverio said after a conference in Pfeiffer’s chambers, “but it is not enough.”

The School Department incurred a $4.2-million deficit in the last fiscal year and is expected to rack up an additional $4.1 million in debt by the end of October, Oliverio said.

The solicitor said that simply preserving teachers’ pay at the current level would require an increase on the tax levy that exceeds the city’s self-imposed ceiling of 3.5 percent and the state cap of 5 percent.

Oliverio said he plans to submit written arguments to Pfeiffer by tomorrow seeking standing to intervene in the case on the side of the School Committee.

Meanwhile, the teachers union does not expect a ruling from Pfeiffer in time to block reduced paychecks on Jan. 16, according to its lawyer, John DeCubellis.

Those paychecks will actually be set tomorrow, a week before they are to be released to the teachers, he said.

The union cannot expect a ruling from Pfeiffer before the amounts are fixed, DeCubellis said, although teachers hope that a subsequent decision would contain provisions for union members to recover lost pay.

Pfeiffer said he would decide by Jan. 23 whether to stay the salary reduction, which the union says violates state labor law governing collective bargaining.

The School Committee’s lawyer, Daniel Kinder, has said that the law which supersedes all others in this case is one that prohibits the School Department from producing an operating deficit. Oliverio yesterday emphatically agreed with that position.

At the City Council meeting Tuesday, Larisa lectured.

“We have no money,” he said. “The teachers union doesn’t want to believe that.”

To eliminate the cumulative deficit, he said, the city would have to add $600 to the average homeowner’s tax bill.

“It’s not that we want to cut salaries or go from zero to 20 percent [health-care contributions],” Larisa continued. “There’s no other choice. It’s that or the city files for bankruptcy or we charge a 20 percent tax increase. This isn’t a joke.”

Teacher salaries and benefits account for nearly 87 percent of the school district’s budget, and the schools budget accounts for more than 50 percent of city’s entire operating budget.

“That’s how serious this situation is,” Larisa said. “If we don’t get this resolved soon, this is going to be a battle for the future of our city.”

City Councilman Robert Cusack agreed.

“Municipal bankruptcy is not a pretty sight,” Cusack said. “You really can’t borrow money. Your access to capital markets is closed and by the way, capital markets have a memory. It’s hard to regain access. It makes things very difficult. We don’t want to take that crazy step, but we also won’t go to the taxpayers and cause them to go past their breaking points.”

—With staff reports from Alisha A. Pina

gmacris@projo.com