PROVIDENCE — Despite a yawning budget deficit and a sharply downsized state work force, the Carcieri administration plans to use 584 contract employees in the current fiscal year, including a $238,140 project manager at the Department of Labor and Training, a $196,000 database administrator at the Department of Corrections and an $87,500 junior help desk assistant at the Rhode Island Veterans Home.

Also on the list of contractors: pharmacists, nurses, sign language interpreters, as well as dozens of respiratory therapists and pages upon pages of computer programmers.

Nearly all of the proposed jobs are extensions of posts already held, the Carcieri administration says. Overall, the number of state contract employees is actually down slightly from a year ago.

But that didn’t stop union officials at a hearing yesterday from blasting the administration for continuing to use pricey outside workers when it says it can hardly afford to pay its own state employees.

“You’re looking at a whole subsidized secondary subset of the state employee work force with very little accountability and very little justification, and I’m not sure the state is getting its extra money’s worth,” said James Cenerini, spokesman and lobbyist for Council 94, American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees, the state’s largest employees union.

“… By our count, at least 73 individuals are going to be making above $90,000 a year… when the state is going through one of the worst economic crises in history,” Cenerini said.

The governor’s team again defended its use of contract employees yesterday, as it has done frequently in recent years when faced with scrutiny.

“Since July 1, 2007, the state has reduced [its] work force by 1,752 employees, while also reducing the number of posted contract positions by five,” said Governor Carcieri’s spokeswoman, Amy Kempe. The state, she said, has not used contract workers to backfill jobs vacated by recent retirements.

The administration maintains that contract employees are essential for temporary and hard-to-fill jobs. “It also gives the state access, in many cases, to highly trained and specialized skilled employees who would otherwise not be interested in state employment,” Kempe said.

But union leaders challenged that logic, saying the continued reliance on contractors year after year proves that they are anything but temporary.

“The governor is talking out of both sides of his mouth,” said Sal Lombardi, president of AFSCME Local 2884, which represents about 200 employees in 17 state agencies.

Yesterday’s hearing was only the second of its kind: the result of a legislative mandate requiring a public “determination of need” for contract employees.

The gathering came just two days after a Superior Court judge ordered the Carcieri administration to turn over to Council 94 state contracts valued at more than $100,000 as required by law. The ruling was the result of a union lawsuit alleging that “the public deserves to know how hundreds of millions of dollars are spent on private contractors and temporary employees.”

In her decision, Judge Netti C. Vogel agreed that the documents must be turned over “so long as the contracts provide services that once were performed by public agency employees at some time in the past."

Speaking through his spokeswoman yesterday, the governor said he disagrees with the decision and plans to appeal. “Specifically, the interpretation of a statute that requires state agencies to look back to the creation of state government to see what services were once provided by state employees at any time in the past would appear to be beyond what was intended by the General Assembly,” Kempe said.

The court decision and yesterday’s hearing mark the latest battles between Carcieri and Council 94. A months-long contract standoff ended only last month when the membership OK’d a new four-year deal. A related lawsuit continues in federal court.

cneedham@projo.com