EAST PROVIDENCE — The state Labor Relations Board, which Mayor Joseph S. Larisa Jr. alleges has a pro-union bias, is scheduled to hear the city’s dispute with the teachers today.

The School Committee is also pursuing its lawsuit that asks the Superior Court to take the state board out of the equation.

The suit, filed last week, contends that a state law barring school districts from logging operating deficits trumps any labor laws. It says the committee’s January decision to reduce teachers’ salaries by nearly 5 percent and require them to start paying part of their health insurance premiums was needed to keep the district from going further into the red.

“We wish the School Committee well in escaping that,” Larisa said at Tuesday night’s City Council meeting. Last month, Larisa predicted the city would lose before the state board because, he said, it is biased. He repeated that assertion this week.

His opinion was countered by the East Providence Education Association, the local teachers union, and its parent organization, National Education Association Rhode Island. Local president Valarie Lawson noted that the state board is appointed by the governor, and comprises a neutral member, three business people and two labor members. That makeup is hardly one that would favor unions, she said.

“I certainly wouldn’t question the integrity of the labor board,” Lawson said. “We believe the merits of our case warranted [a hearing before the labor board]. The complaints [issued by that board] validated what we have been saying all along about the School Committee’s actions.”

Larisa said an independent review of the board’s cases supported his contention. The Ocean State Policy Research Institute — a conservative policy group whose executive director, William Felk-ner, is a Hopkinton Town Council member — recently researched the board’s 19 cases since 2006.

Seven “contained substantive rulings that impact management-labor interactions” and every one of them was in favor of labor unions. The total scorecard is 15 wins for labor and 4 wins for management, the institute said.

“Couldn’t management just be wrong all those times?” Felkner said in a news release. “When looking carefully at the basis for decisions, what we found was that when past practices support labor’s position they are controlling, but when they support management’s position they fall short. Every case is different but the weight that the board places on various theories and precedent are like a finger on the scale, and there can be no doubt it is tipping towards labor.”

The organization also reviewed the time it took the state board to hear matters after a charge is filed. It said most cases took 148 days to be considered and an average of 319 days to be heard.

Felkner said the East Providence issue was treated with “breakneck speed” — considered in 36 days and brought to a hearing in 73 days.

Said Larisa, “The point is clear, what I said [earlier] is correct…. The cat is out of the bag.”

Patrick Crowley, an assistant executive director of NEARI, said, “Having had the displeasure of reading this so-called report, it only serves to confirm Mayor Larisa and Mr. Felkner have no idea what they are talking about. Given their bumbling and lack of popular support this isn’t surprising at all.”

The labor board’s administrator, Robyn H. Golden, had no comment about the allegations or the East Providence case.

Today’s public hearing is scheduled for 9 a.m. on the first floor of the Department of Labor and Training, 1511 Pontiac Ave., Cranston.

apina@projo.com