PROVIDENCE — As new details emerged yesterday in Governor Carcieri’s push to eliminate hundreds of state jobs to close a massive budget hole, the governor’s office acknowledged the success of the plan depends in part on the General Assembly’s willingness to change state law aimed at slowing the widespread “privatization” of state services.

The Assembly tightened privatization laws as part of the state budget eight days after the governor pledged in June to privatize “every state service that could possibly be performed more efficiently by the private sector.”

But yesterday, with dozens of layoffs hinging on the hiring of private workers, the governor’s spokesman Jeff Neal acknowledged that Carcieri may need help from the legislative branch to execute the plan.

“We are seriously considering asking the General Assembly to make some changes to the anti-privatization law that was approved last summer,” he said. “Given the severity of the budget situation, we are hopeful that the General Assembly will join us in any effort to reduce costs for Rhode Island.”

House Majority Leader Gordon D. Fox, D-Providence, was noncommittal when contacted last night. “I can’t comment until we see the specific details of the governor’s proposal to change the law,” he said.

On another budget-cutting front yesterday, some of the governor’s statements earlier this week sparked “serious questions” from the Most Rev. Thomas J. Tobin, bishop of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Providence.

While voicing “personal admiration and respect” for Carcieri, the bishop said “the Church, like the state, has many demands upon its services while operating with limited sources of revenue,” so “calling upon the faith-based community to do more to help with the budget crisis raises serious questions.”

The impetus for his comments was the governor’s statement, on talk radio earlier this week, that he was counting on “the churches and philanthropic communities” to “step forward” as he pursues welfare cuts, including lowering the income-cap for subsidized child care and cutting in half, to 30 months, the time-limit for receiving assistance from the Family Independence Program.

In his statement — and in a conversation he said he had with the governor yesterday morning — Bishop Tobin voiced concern that “the weak, the poor and the needy not be left behind” as the state struggles to avert a looming budget crisis. He said the religious community already provides “very substantial services,” such as “scholarships” of up to $100 a month his church provides struggling families for licensed child care, and the $195,000 in home-heating assistance distributed over the last year to 793 households that had exhausted other avenues.

He said he was willing to take part in a work group of lawmakers, academics, business and union leaders or perhaps be “an arbitrating voice when there are so many competing agendas and values floating around.” But with “limited and completely voluntary sources of income,” he said, “many religious communities are already stretched to their limits.”

In response, Neal said the governor never meant to suggest “the faith-based community perform any specific action or provide any additional monetary resources.” Neal said he was merely conveying “his view that, in difficult times, every element of society, including the faith-based community, must continue and strengthen ongoing efforts to develop solutions to shared problems and to support our most vulnerable citizens.”

Meanwhile, the governor’s office yesterday released a list of 483 positions separated into two groups — 153 workers who received layoff notices, and 330 who received warnings that their jobs may be eliminated or “subcontracted” in the coming months.

What most concerned union leaders yesterday were letters from the administration warning of the potential “subcontracting or elimination” of some of the activities currently performed by sheriffs who transport prisoners, “certain financial functions at the Department of Health,” and the Hearing Center at the state Education Department.

Noting that the sheriffs, audio technicians who travel from school to school testing students for hearing loss and prison counselors are among those targeted for potential layoff, Council 94 executive director Dennis Grilli said: “It seems like any pocket involving public safety or public health, it seems they are attacking. It’s a concern for us and I think it’s a concern for the public.”

It is not clear whether the governor has the ability to hire replacement contractors.

In an interview last month, even the governor’s chief of staff, Brian Stern, acknowledged that a controversial “anti-privatization” law passed in the final hours of the Assembly’s last session created so many hoops that it became logically impossible to replace state workers with private contractors.

“At this point, we feel that it is not possible to comply with the privatization statute as written,” Stern said days before Carcieri rolled out his plan to cut the state’s workforce by 1,000 positions — including temporary workers and vacant jobs — to help fill a state budget deficit set as high as $450 million for the coming fiscal year.

The law enacted in June requires a series of detailed notifications and cost-benefit analyses before the governor can move forward with any plan to replace state employees with private contractors.

But Stern was most concerned that the law “gives all state employees, their unions, and all affected parties the right of appeal, and specifically says until all appeals are concluded we can’t implement it,” Stern said.

“What it effectively did is it stopped the privatizations…”

Carcieri said the layoffs alone will save taxpayers $41.6 million in the fiscal year that begins July 1, but his office acknowledged yesterday there will also be substantial costs.

They include a potential $7.9 million in unemployment costs if each of the employees receives the maximum benefit of 26 weeks. Though not required, the state will also provide 90 days of health insurance for all laid off workers at an estimated cost of $1.8 million, Neal said. The state won’t pay for unused sick time, but will compensate the laid off workers — at an as yet unknown cost — for accrued vacation time.

When faced with questions yesterday, the Carcieri administration refused to name the targeted employees and took steps to prevent the state personnel office from providing information it routinely provides about who holds what title in state government. The Journal asked who held various job titles, not who received the layoff notices.

However, a comparison of the job titles made public yesterday to a state employee roster the administration provided the newspaper last June in response to a public information request provided some insights.

At least 14 are top-level managers and administrators.

At the Department of Environmental Management, for example, officials confirmed that former Westerly Town Manager Glenn Miller, the DEM’s $86,016-a-year chief of management services, and Janet Keller, the $98,492-a-year chief of strategic planning and policy who was a key player in the state’s recycling efforts, face layoff. Miller has been a state worker since 1995; Keller since 1985. Other high-level jobs on the layoff list included the associate director of community corrections, a title held by Jeffrey Renzi, within the state prison system; an assistant director of health-community affairs, a title held by Robert Marshall; and within the governor’s own office, the associate director of planning, policy and regulation, a title held by Janet Essex. In June, Renzi was making $105,034 a year, Marshall, $103,505 and Essex, $102,797.

Targeted for potential layoff: the chief of dental services at the prison, a $118,224-a-year job held by William DelGizzo.

Eyebrows went up at the inclusion, on the layoff list, of the “director, Department of Revenue” a week after Carcieri announced his choice of Gary Sasse, the longtime director of the Rhode Island Public Expenditure Council, for the top spot in the new agency. Neal said Sasse, who has not yet started his new job, is not the target.

Other than the heads of the state tax division, Lottery and registry, the only other person in the new revenue department who carries that title is Joseph Pomposelli, the onetime chief of the governor’s business office.

kgregg@projo.com