PROVIDENCE –– The winners were hard to find inside the House Finance Committee room last night.

In less than an hour, the powerful legislative panel voted to close a current-year budget hole of $168 million, imposing a swath of cuts to programs for poor children, cities and towns, and state workers.

“There is a lot of pain out there on all levels,” said Finance Committee Chairman Steven M. Costantino. “This budget, I don’t think it’s a gleeful budget. But it’s a responsible budget and it’s something we had to do.”

The deficit-avoidance plan cuts state aid to municipalities by $12.5 million in the fiscal year that ends in June. It will knock more than 2,800 immigrant children off subsidized health care and another 3,400 poor children off welfare. And it sharply reduces health-care benefits for state employees who retire after Sept. 30.

The vote marks a significant step forward in the state government’s struggle to close massive budget deficits that Governor Carcieri says have pushed Rhode Island to the brink of financial disaster.

But it was just a first step.

The package passed yesterday addresses only the deficit projected for the current fiscal year. It does little to address next year’s estimated hole of $384 million, a number that state leaders largely agree will grow substantially when fiscal advisers examine state revenues next month.

Still, the plan approved yesterday 13 to 0, with 3 abstentions, includes cuts and new policies that will affect virtually every Rhode Islander, from inmates to taxpayers to immigrant children.

It did not, however, include any tax increases.

“It could have been a lot worse. The chamber is pleased that there are no new taxes,” said David R. Carlin III, vice president for government affairs for the Northern Rhode Island Chamber of Commerce.

The supplemental budget passed yesterday enjoys the backing of the House’s Democratic leadership and is expected to win passage in a special legislative session Friday afternoon.

Much of the package approved by the Democrat-dominated committee is in line with what Republican Carcieri proposed in January.

“When I introduced my supplemental budget plan several months ago, I said that we needed to make difficult spending reduction decisions in a host of areas and that tax increases were out of the question. The House Finance Committee appears to agree,” Carcieri said in a statement.

Finance Committee member Carol A. Mumford, R-Scituate, was among the three Republicans to abstain from yesterday’s vote.

Why didn’t she vote for the bill, which Carcieri largely supports?

“I hadn’t read it,” she said, noting that the committee was handed copies of the budget articles as the vote was taking place. “I want to make certain that what I’m voting on is exactly what it is I believe I’m voting on.”

Highlights of the plan include:

RETIREE HEALTH

BENEFITS/LABOR

The bill creates the potential for a mass exodus of state workers between now and Oct. 1, when new retiree-benefit rules would take effect.

Under current law, longtime state workers pay nothing, after they retire, toward their health-insurance premiums. Others pay as much as 50 percent of the rate the state is charged for an “active” employee. The state not only pays the other half, it also pays the difference between that rate and the higher rate the insurer is actually charging the state for this older, and presumably sicker, group.

Lawmakers agreed to go along with the new minimum-age-and-work requirements Carcieri proposed.

After Sept. 30, a retiree would have to be at least 59 and have worked for the state at least 20 years to qualify for the benefit. And those who do will have to pay 20 percent of the actual $8,461 anticipated cost to the state of a single health plan, or $1,692 a year.

While the move will not save quite as much as Carcieri might have hoped when he proposed June 30 as the trigger date, lawmakers are anticipating that the change will prompt 2,000 retirements between now and early fall. While an estimated 1,600 positions will have to be filled, the move will result in 400 “permanent vacancies.”

Labor unions had lobbied heavily against the provision.

“We are still hopeful that we can reach some other solution on this issue,” said AFL-CIO Secretary-Treasurer George Nee. “We think this is a little too harsh.”

The committee also included savings of $14.8 million associated with “furlough” days that the governor is still negotiating with the unions. Under the plan, 15,000 public employees would have to take off six unpaid workdays before July.

LOCAL AID

By the time the news arrived yesterday that a proposal to strip $12.5 million in non-school aid to local communities was moving forward, Rhode Island’s cities and towns had begrudgingly prepared themselves for that reality.

“We had to assume the worst,” said Cranston Mayor Michael T. Napolitano. “That’s why we tightened our belt and we’re going to tighten it some more.”

The proposed cuts –– a combined reduction of state revenue-sharing and compensation for lowering local car taxes –– is money local communities have come to rely on to supplement their budgets.

But when that cash didn’t arrive by late March this year, as it usually does, many communities got a whiff of what was to come, said Dan Beardsley, head of the Rhode Island League of Cities and Towns.

“The handwriting on the wall was crystal clear and many of them have had to accept the state’s current fiscal predicament,” he said.

SOCIAL SERVICES

The Finance Committee included the governor’s original proposal to cut state-subsidized health care, known as RIte Care, for more than 2,800 “non-citizen” children. More than 1,250 are in the country legally, while the rest are undocumented.

The provision would take effect May 1. It drew immediate criticism from social-service advocates.

“I’m seeing a real step backward for us as a state,” said Karen Malcolm, executive director for the advocacy group Ocean State Action. “Whether or not you have health insurance doesn’t impact whether or not you get sick.”

Costantino said he plans to include additional money in next year’s budget for community health centers for uninsured immigrant children. He could not specify how much.

But the package approved yesterday ignored a separate Carcieri proposal to cut an estimated 7,400 parents off RIte Care. Costantino said an amended version of the RIte Care plan would be included in next year’s budget, although he could not provide specifics.

Regarding the Family Independence Program, commonly known as welfare, House Finance followed the governor’s recommendation to end welfare benefits for those who exceed the state’s 60-month limit. Currently, state officials allow children to continue receiving benefits even after their parents have timed out. Families with one child, for example, receive $327 each month. An estimated 3,400 low-income children would lose welfare benefits.

The provision makes exceptions for victims of domestic violence, homelessness and disability, and would affect all families that reach the 60-month limit as of Aug. 1.

(The Assembly in next year’s budget will consider a separate proposal to cut the limit to two years.)

PRISON INMATES

The budget proposal revives a plan to save money and relieve overcrowding at Rhode Island’s prisons by releasing inmates early.

Under the committee’s recommended plan, inmates –– with the exception of sex offenders and those serving life sentences — could earn extra days off their sentences for good behavior and participation in rehabilitation and treatment programs.

Last month, House lawmakers passed a similar version of the bill, minus the credit for rehabilitation programs, which was deleted amid concerns about sex offenders earning time off their sentences. That bill is now before the Senate.

Corrections Director A.T. Wall applauded yesterday’s amendment, which he said would encourage inmate participation in behavior-modification programs. “I think the committee recognized it was the sensible thing to do if we care about the safety of the public after inmates are released,” he said.

Of the current crowding, he said, “This past Sunday we had 10 inmates sleeping in the committing room in the intake center.” The committee also included a measure to cap the population at the state’s Training School at 148 males and 12 females. The Family Court, which controls youth sentences, has consistently opposed the plan.

AFFORDABLE HOUSING

The state’s Neighborhood Opportunities Program –– the seven-year-old fund that helps finance affordable housing for those who make less than $30,000 a year –– was one of the few statewide that saw a bit of relief yesterday.

Instead of eliminating the program’s entire $7.5-million budget, the committee recommended restoring the $5 million that’s already been promised for seven projects around the state.

But the NOP program is still expected to be hurt by the plan to scoop $26 million from Rhode Island Housing, the independent state agency that lends money and provides grants for affordable-housing projects.

“That hit is painful,” said Brenda Clements, executive director of the Statewide Housing Action Coalition. “There’s not $26 million sitting around in a bank account somewhere.”

CELL PHONES, LICENSE PLATES, NEWSPAPERS

The committee left out two vehicle-related proposals. The first would have allowed police to issue $50 tickets to drivers who use hand-held cell phones. The second would require newly registered cars to have only one license plate, not two.

The bill also allows state departments and municipal governments to avoid posting advance notice of proposed rulemaking in newspapers, moving such notices to the Internet.

speoples@projo.com