PROVIDENCE –– The state Supreme Court will not review the constitutionality of Rhode Island’s controversial privatization law.

Governor Carcieri sought an advisory opinion from the high court after arguing that the law –– passed near midnight in the waning days of the 2007 General Assembly session –– essentially blocked his ability to save money by replacing state workers with temporary contractors. The use of contractors can save tax dollars largely because they don’t receive health and retirement benefits from the state.

The fight largely epitomized the Republican governor’s clash with organized labor and its supporters in the Democrat-dominated General Assembly.

But as with several contentious issues in the current legislative session’s final weeks, the Assembly crafted a compromise with Carcieri as part of the new state budget, leading the governor’s office on July 3 to withdraw its request for an advisory opinion.

The Supreme Court agreed to drop the case yesterday. Lawyers for the General Assembly, organized labor and the governor’s office had already submitted motions outlining their arguments in anticipation of oral arguments before the high court.

The original bill’s sponsor, Rep. Charlene Lima, D-Cranston, yesterday said she was glad the issue was settled, a move that saves state taxpayers the cost of a protracted legal battle that pitted the executive branch against the legislative branch.

“We were able to get the governor’s office on board by fine-tuning the language this year,” Lima said. “But in all actuality, if the governor was more interested in resolving this issue, we could have done it last year. But it seems like he was more interested in creating controversy with sound bites.”

The governor’s office said yesterday it was pleased with compromise adopted by the General Assembly late last month.

Specifically, the amended law requires the administration to give union leaders six months notice of attempts to replace union workers. And it requires the administration to provide a detailed cost analysis 60 days before asking private staffing firms to bid on the service in question.

In addition, the bill limits who can appeal a privatization decision to the affected employees or their union representatives.

The original bill had no time limits and allowed anyone affected by a privatization decision — with no definition of who that might be — to appeal.

“The amendment, in the opinion of the governor, brought the law within constitutional parameters,” said the governor’s spokeswoman, Amy Kempe.

In an interview last week, Carcieri said he had no immediate plans to replace state workers with private contractors.

“Those things we’ll look at,” Carcieri said, noting that the amended law doesn’t take effect until Jan. 1.

speoples@projo.com