CRANSTON - Mayor Stephen P. Laffey announced a wide range of budget cuts last night - but he said they would not be enough to save the city, which he said is hobbled by contractual union benefits that are "too rich for Cranston."

Laffey blamed past administrations and City Councils for providing these benefits and for signing long-term contracts last year that he said now tie his hands.

But the authority to implement most of Laffey's cost-savings measures lies elsewhere and he wasn't shy about making that clear. At the end of his hour-long presentation he illuminated a viewing screen with the home phone numbers of the nine City Council members.

"If you really, really want change, I'm offering it to you here," he told the 700 people who packed the auditorium of Hugh B. Bain Middle School to hear his presentation.

He urged his audience to attend Monday night's City Council meeting, at which he will submit a $191-million budget that would increase overall spending by nearly $5 million, or 2.5 percent. He has characterized his budget as $11 million short of what would be needed unless fundamental spending changes are made.

(In January, the City Council and Laffey imposed a mid-year property tax increase to generate $11.6 million in additional revenue. Laffey promised then to come back to the public with an equivalent amount in cuts.)

If his plan is implemented, Laffey vowed, it will put the city on the track to financial health and, for the first time in years, enable the city to tackle the unfunded liability in its police and firefighters pension system.

The cuts Laffey proposed last night dig deepest into the School and Senior Services Departments. Other reductions range from the elimination of free trash pick-up for refrigerators and other large items to a reduction in the amount of fertilizer on the city's fields.

But the city needs to "go further," Laffey told the often supportive crowd. The city needs to eliminate some benefits for employees or face astronomical tax increases, Laffey said.

Salaries and other benefits that the city is obligated to pay account for 85 percent of the city's annual budget, he said, and he pointed to benefits he would seek to eliminate.

Police and firefighters

At age 55, every retired police officer and firefighter gets a 5 percent pension increase, Laffey said.

That, he said, comes in addition to annual cost-of-living increases for that can never drop below 3 percent. If the retiree's union wins a raise exceeding 3 percent in a given year, that higher raise is applied to the retiree as well.

Over the years, Laffey said, many retired police officers and firefighters have received annual pension increases averaging 5.2 percent.

"This has been going on in Cranston way too long," Laffey said. "People, I'm stopping it tonight."

Laffey said these benefits were not produced by contract negotiations, but rather by ordinances adopted by the City Council in 1996. Therefore, he suggested, the current council could repeal the benefits by passing new ordinances - and he disclosed that he will submit such measures to the council Monday night.

Eliminating the age-55 bonus and the guaranteed cost-of-living increases, Laffey said, would reduce the unfunded pension liability - which currently is about $250 million - by about $100 million.

"If the police and fire aren't going to save their pension, we're going to do it for them," Laffey said. "The level of benefits are just too much for Cranston."

(The city's Financial Review Board plans to review the ordinances tonight at 6 in City Hall.)

Stephen J. Antonucci, president of Cranston's police union, declared that Laffey's proposal is illegal and that the 5 percent bonus is mandated by contract as well as ordinance.

Crossing guards

They work for 30 minutes before the school day and 30 minutes after the school day, 40 weeks a year, Laffey said turning to the issue of the city's 39 unionized crossing guards.

For that, they are paid $8,540 a year and receive health-care insurance that costs the city $9,000 a year for most guards.

That adds up to the equivalent of $87.70 an hour, Laffey said.

Also, when school is not in session, most crossing guards collect unemployment, a share of which is paid for by the city, Laffey said.

"The day after I got elected," Laffey said, "I started getting phone calls, 'Hey, you know my wife has been on a waiting list for 10 years to be a crossing guard.' I kept getting these calls.... I'm thinking, this is like trying to get a Green Bay Packers ticket. There's something good going on with crossing guards."

The crossing guards have a no-layoff clause in their contract, but Laffey said he plans to get around that by eliminating the jobs and recruiting teachers and teacher aides to perform those duties for an additional $2,000 a year.

The net savings, according to Laffey, would be $572,000.

Leaders of the crossing guards' union, who were at Laffey's meeting, declined comment later.

Public schools

Although the School Department's budget accounts for 55 percent of overall city spending, the mayor and City Council have very little control over it, Laffey said.

Each year, the council authorizes a bottom-line budget figure. The School Committee has complete control over how its spends the money.

This year, the School Department's budget was frozen at the prior year's level, about $95.5 million.

In January, Laffey proposed giving the schools an additional $11.5 million for the year that begins July 1. But the School Committee maintains that it needs a $15-million increase, and the state Department of Education, in a special report, said that authorizing less money would jeopardize the quality of local education.

Laffey last night suggested granting the schools a $9 million increase - cutting his initial proposal by $2.5 million.

Of the additional $15 million the school board had requested, $12.9 million is for contractual obligations, he said.

Laffey said he wants the School Committee to consolidate some operations and to pursue teacher-contract concessions that would require teachers to contribute to the cost of their health benefits.

Currently, the teachers must pay 12 percent of that cost, but that requirement will disappear on July 1, under a contract renegotiation last year.

Laffey said that eliminating the co-pay requirement will cost the city $1.7 million next fiscal year.

Senior Center

In the Senior Services Department, Laffey would scale back everything from adult daycare to Transvan service, to save almost $675,000.

He proposes to slash spending on overtime and on part-time help. His proposed cuts in line items range from $75 to $180,145, with the Senior Center's nutrition program taking the biggest hit.

Senior Services Director Deborah St. Peter said that, while there might be reductions in programs, no one program would be eliminated. "I think the reduction will not be too severe," St. Peter said. "A lot of what will be done is trying to combine positions and services."

Pension fund

This year, the city pumped no money into the nearly insolvent police and firefighters pension fund - and actually siphoned money from it to balance the budget.

Laffey proposes a $5-million cash infusion in the next fiscal year, $1 million less than he proposed just two months ago - and only half the figure that an actuarial consultant had recommended in an October report.

With staff reports from Barbara Polichetti.