Henry Boeniger, second from left, of the National Education Association, and other union representatives talk yesterday outside the House Finance Committee hearing room.

The Providence Journal / Connie Grosch

PROVIDENCE — Governor Carcieri wants to force municipalities to hold public hearings to review tentative labor agreements before they are finalized, a move that union officials yesterday said would lead to harassment and unnecessary political pressure.

The plan, submitted as part of the governor’s 2008-’09 budget, would also require cities and towns to submit pending labor agreements and fiscal impact statements to the state auditor general to “note his or her approval as to accuracy and reliability of the dollar estimates….”

“I just think it’s another form, to be honest with you, of causing some undue harassment, whether direct or indirect, by allowing this process,” Henry Boeniger, a lobbyist for the National Education Association, testified before the House Finance Committee. “We elect officials to negotiate contracts. It’s sort of like letting other people negotiate contracts.”

Carcieri’s office released a statement yesterday afternoon suggesting that increased public input would lead to better contracts.

“This budget article will improve transparency of budget decisions in local cities and towns, while giving people a voice in the decision-making process by requiring a public hearing,” the governor’s spokesman, Jeff Neal, said. “If approved, it would enable the citizens of local communities to express their support for, concerns about or opposition to collective bargaining contracts being agreed to by municipalities.”

The fate of the proposal rests with the General Assembly, which is wrestling with the governor’s 2008-’09 spending plan, which seeks to close a deficit of at least $384 million for the fiscal year that begins in July. There are hundreds of program cuts in the 122-page budget bill, in addition to several proposals that create no direct costs or savings for the state.

There was little discussion yesterday of Carcieri’s plans to cut at least $24 million from current levels of non-education state aid to cities and towns next year. Municipal leaders across the state have blasted the governor’s cost-cutting plans, which include cutting $13 million from communities over the next four months.

The debate yesterday largely centered on Carcieri’s push to shed light on the collective bargaining process, which is generally conducted behind closed doors between union representatives and municipal or school department leaders.

Dan Beardsley, director of the Rhode Island League of Cities and Towns, testified in favor of the governor’s proposal, saying that the poor fiscal condition of municipalities forced him to support a proposal he probably would have opposed 10 years ago.

“We agree with you 100 percent with regard to the public perception that transparency is needed,” he said.

But labor leaders said public disclosure of union contracts before they are finalized could jeopardize months of negotiations.

“I’m halfway decent at reading tea leaves and I’m pretty clear that this budget article is about putting pressure on public officials not to give decent, in my view, pay raises and benefits to public sector workers,” said James Parisi, a lobbyist for the Rhode Island Federation of Teachers and Health Professionals. “It’s built on a couple false assumptions — that the employer doesn’t know what they’re doing and they’re getting hoodwinked by unions…. Public perception and the chatter out there aside, it’s just not true and you need to know it’s not true.”

Committee chairman Steven M. Costantino would not commit to the governor’s plan, but said if the primary concern was improving transparency, “there’s a lot of ways to get at transparency.”

Committee member Rep. John Patrick Shanley Jr., D-South Kingstown, suggested he was open to the plan.

“I know it’s an anathema to organized labor and I can certainly understand why, but to me it’s an issue of transparency,” Shanley said. “There seems to be a level of frustration by the citizens of many of our communities who are saying to us, ‘We don’t seem to get enough of that information in a timely fashion that we know what’s going on.’ ”

speoples@projo.com