WOONSOCKET — The City Council met behind closed doors with representatives of Mayor Susan Menard last night to hear how she plans to deal with an expected state aid cut, and if those plans include laying off of as many as 30 police officers and 45 firefighters.

Neither question got a public answer, as the council met with mayoral representatives in closed session to discuss the city’s anticipated budget problems.

The meeting was originally set to be a work session on the upcoming city budget. It become more significant after union leaders said Menard threatened that she might lay off around 30 police officers and 45 firefighters, unless the unions grant her concessions on benefits and staffing.

Union leaders in both departments said cuts along the lines Menard has suggested — approximately a third of each department’s union membership — would be devastating.

“It’s a tragedy waiting to happen,” Woonsocket Firefighters Association Local 732 President Steven R. Reilly said.

“I’ve got people here wondering if they have a job,” International Brotherhood of Police Officers Local 404 President John Scully said.

Both union leaders said Menard presented her proposals as take-it-or-leave-it offers. Reilly said because his union’s contract with the city has minimum staffing requirements — the police contract does not — he questioned if she could lay off as many firefighters as she said she wanted to. And if she did, he said the resulting overtime could well devour much or all of the possible savings the city would be trying to achieve.

The city’s $116 million budget was crafted assuming about $9.8 million in state aid. Butt he state’s worsening economy and plummeting state budget revenues have prompted the state to warn the city to expect a possible cut of $3.2 million, Planning and Development Director Joel Mathews told the council.

Nearly 90 people, most of them wearing police or fire union garb, packed the second floor conference room where the workshop session was to be held. They took up the seats, stood three deep along the back of the room and lined up along the side walls as well. More people lined up in the hallway.

Menard was not at the meeting, but Mathews, Finance Director Ted Przybyla and City Solicitor Robert Iuliano were. Mathews told the council he would only brief the council on the mayor’s plans for the police and fire budgets if the meeting could be held in closed session. What he had to tell the council affected the city’s bargaining strategies, he said, and letting that information out to the public could hurt the city’s position. Collective bargaining strategy is one of the exceptions to the state’s open meetings law.

“We cannot and will not be part of it,” Mathews said of any public discussion of the administration’s plans.

Council members promised to meet with the union leaders separately to get their side of their exchanges with the mayor.

The council could be important to any final deal with the unions, as Mathews said some of the unions’ contractual benefits, such as health insurance co-pays, have been approved by ordinance and would need City Council approval to be changed.

The council acceded to Mathews’ closed meeting request on a 5-2 vote, with council members Suzanne Vadenais and John Ward opposing. But it was not until after several council members complained about a lack of communication from the mayor about her plans.

Council President Leo Fontaine said he thought, after the mayor had been talking on local radio about her plans, that she would have attended the meeting last night. He said he found it odd that Menard was willing to discuss her plans with a radio audience, but when it came time to talk to the council, she sent substitutes and wanted the meeting in closed session.

“There has been a lot of discussion by the mayor on the radio,” he said, “quite a bit of detail on aspects of the plan.”

“I’m dismayed she’s not here,” Councilman Christopher Beauchamp said.

Councilwoman Stella Brien said it bothered her that she was handed a memo outlining the mayor’s plans just as the meeting them was starting. She said she was taken aback by the turnout and upset that no one on either side, union or city administration, had called her to advise her of the situation.

“I don’t like surprises,” she said. “I don’t read The Call. I don’t like to get my news on TV,” she said. “ … I want to know what’s going on.”

jhill@projo.com