From left, lobbyist Brian Goldman, Lifespan government affairs director David Balasco and intern Angela Marcaccio watch yesterday’s Senate Finance Committee hearing.

The Providence Journal / Connie Grosch

PROVIDENCE — Over the strong objection of labor unions, a key Senate committee last night narrowly endorsed a package of spending cuts to help balance a current-year state budget deficit of at least $168 million.

The midyear spending revision –– known as the “supplemental budget” –– passed the House of Representatives last week despite critics who blasted cuts in aid to cities and towns, reduced health-care benefits for retired state workers and the elimination of subsidized health care for more than 2,800 immigrant children.

The plan doesn’t increase any state taxes.

Opponents yesterday mounted a last-ditch effort to block the bill from passing the Assembly as the package moved to the Senate Finance Committee, its last stop before the full Senate votes on the package –– scheduled for this afternoon.

“We pleaded our case on the other side, now we’re pleading our case on this side,” Henry Boeniger, a lobbyist for the National Education Association, said of the swath of cuts that must pass the Senate to become law. Boeniger was joined by at least 10 labor representatives in the cramped committee room last night.

The Finance Committee nearly voted to kill the entire plan.

The panel voted 7 to 6 to endorse the package –– a vote that was successful only because three Senate leaders joined the committee minutes before the roll call vote.

The committee generally has only 10 members, but Senate leaders have the ability to vote on any committee. Senate President Joseph Montalbano joined Majority Leader M. Teresa Paiva Weed and Senate Minority Leader Dennis Algiere in supporting the plan.

The leaders did not take part in the Finance Committee’s vote on the state budget last year.

“This is a highly unusual year,” Paiva Weed said, explaining last night’s participation.

The Finance Committee took testimony for more than an hour, primarily from labor union representatives, who largely opposed just one of the 21 budget proposals, a provision that would reduce retiree health-care benefits for state workers who retire after Sept. 30.

After that time, workers who retire must wait until the age of 59 to qualify for health-care benefits. There’s currently no age requirement. Those who qualify after Sept. 30 would pay approximately $3,000 more each year for health benefits. State officials plan to create a modified plan that would be less expensive.

“We think it’s bad public policy … to scare people out of the work force,” said James Cenerini, a lobbyist for Council 94, American Federation of State, County & Municipal Employees.

Meanwhile, a poll released yesterday suggests that 65 percent of the population oppose one of the most controversial provisions in the plan to cut $12.5 million in aid to cities and towns this year.

“I think it’s always dangerous and it’s certainly undesirable in a democracy for decisions to be made in a vacuum without any input from the public at large,” said the poll’s author, Victor Profughi, of Rhode Island College’s Bureau of Government Research and Services.

The poll, which covers several proposals under consideration to balance a much larger deficit for the coming year, surveyed 400 registered voters between April 17 and 28.

Forty-three percent favor the governor’s plan to “lay off hundreds of state employees”; 47 percent support allowing the state’s slot parlors to stay open 24 hours a day; and 66 percent agree with the governor’s plan to “lower the maximum time a family can get welfare, from five years to two.”

Another 59 percent favor eliminating the “office of the lieutenant governor and its staff,” although that idea hasn’t surfaced in any budget proposal.

In the Senate Finance Committee, the debate also touched on cutting state aid to cities and towns, an issue likely to surface in an election year.

“When you cut aid in the middle of the year … that can only lead to property tax increases,” said Sen. Paul E. Moura, D-East Providence. “We can kid ourselves that we’re not raising taxes, but we’re raising the most burdensome tax.”

Aside from Montalbano, Paiva Weed and Algiere, Finance Committee members who voted for the supplemental budget include Senators Stephen D. Alves, Walter S. Felag Jr., Maryellen Goodwin, and June Gibbs. The opponents were Senators Frank A. Ciccone III, Hanna M. Gallo, Beatrice A. Lanzi, Paul E. Moura, Juan M. Pichardo and Dominick J. Ruggerio.

speoples@projo.com