PROVIDENCE — Questioning what he calls “outdated” and “outrageous” benefit policies, House Majority Whip Peter F. Kilmartin has proposed a plan to increase the minimum number of hours that state employees must work in order to receive health-care benefits from 20 to 35.

“Getting full health care for working 20 hours a week? Honestly, I think that’s reminiscent of sunnier days in state government,” Kilmartin, D-Pawtucket, said.

Amending the 48-year-old statute to eliminate health care for most part-time workers could save the state more than $4 million annually, he estimates.

Proposals to change benefits for state employees are hardly new. What’s significant about this one is that it has been presented by a member of the Democratic House leadership in a year when the state is facing a massive deficit, and even the House speaker is proposing a tough look at another major public employee benefit: pensions.

Kilmartin said he has not discussed the plan with other members of the leadership. House spokesman Larry Berman said yesterday that Speaker William J. Murphy has not been briefed on it. No hearing has yet been scheduled.

Without the leadership’s stamp of approval, it’s difficult to gauge whether the proposal will gain traction in either chamber of the Assembly, but Kilmartin says given the deficit, it’s critical to reevaluate statutes that have been on the books for years.

The proposed legislation would affect the approximately 341 part-time employees who currently receive health insurance for working fewer than 35 hours, according to state personnel data. Of those, 66 receive individual plans, which each cost roughly $5,400 annually, and 275 have pricier family insurance packages, which run more than $15,200 a year.

All told, those insurance plans cost the state well over $4 million, the data shows. However a personnel official cautioned that the total figure does not factor in employee contributions to the premiums, which offset state costs. Those numbers were unavailable yesterday.

“Frankly, I don’t think many people are aware of that law and given the economic times we’re in, I want [the House Finance Committee] to take a look at it and decide the best course,” Kilmartin said this week. “From a taxpayers’ perspective, most people out there in the private sector aren’t getting full-time benefits for part-time jobs.”

The state statute regarding part-time employee benefits has been around since 1960, when the original act providing insurance for public employees became law. Neither Kilmartin nor a spokesman for Governor Carcieri could remember a time when such an amendment was previously proposed.

Dennis Grilli, executive director of Council 94, the largest state employees union, said any proposed change in benefits should be made at the bargaining table, not by the legislature.

“I don’t know what his rationale is,” Grilli said of Kilmartin’s bill. “I guess it’s part of the cost-saving measures that the state has been looking at,” he said. “But to go after part-time employees who make maybe $10,000 or $15,000 a year would be devastating to those employees and their families. I think there are other ways to find money. If you go the top five percent of income earners in Rhode Island you might find some there.”

The state’s personnel office could not provide an immediate breakdown yesterday of job titles or departments where part-time employees are concentrated.

Anecdotal evidence suggests that part-timers are spread throughout state government. As Grilli noted, some earn modest wages as janitors, cook’s helpers and certified nursing assistants. Others hold much higher-paying positions including several lawyers who work part time for the legislature and part time in private practice.

To the extent that the bill could put a dent in the state’s growing deficit, House Minority Whip Nicholas Gorham, R-Coventry, applauded Kilmartin’s effort. “I think he’s right; 20 hours a week is yet another example of how our state government has far more lenient standards for [conferring] benefits on employees than does the private sector. Maybe it’s time to consider an adjustment,” he said.

Also this session, Kilmartin has proposed a bill that would prohibit state employees who previously worked in municipalities from crediting that municipal service for the purposes of vacation accrual. That legislation was granted a hearing before the House Finance Committee last month. No action has yet been taken.

But Gorham warned there’s a difference between proposing a bill and pushing for its passage. “It’s easy to put a bill in. It’s much harder and more sincere to work hard to get it passed,” he said.

cneedham@projo.com