Hartford -- The Selectboard might vote this week to lay off as many as six employees if members can't find significant savings in the next town budgets.

Officials say changing the town's union contracts might control at least part of the financial answer.

Faced with a 70 percent increase for town employees' health insurance rates and up to $130,000 in lost state funding, town leaders say layoffs are inevitable to keep the municipal tax rate from skyrocketing.

If the police, public works and fire department unions agreed to forgo their 2.25 percent annual wage increases -- amounting to about $150,000 -- the savings could prevent as many as four layoffs, Town Manager Hunter Rieseberg said, adding that he's already eliminated six unfilled positions, two from each of the departments, to limit costs.

He and Selectboard members wouldn't speculate yesterday about timing or whom among the town's roughly 110 employees they would lay off.

The new budget must account for the town health care rates that are increasing by more than $600,000 for 2009 and 2010, Rieseberg said, and the state has told Hartford not to expect two $65,000 promised payments for highway aid.

The Board will vote on the budget at its 6 p.m. meeting Thursday at the Hartford Municipal Building in White River Junction, and with the lay offs, heavy cuts and the debate between the town and the unions up for discussion, Chairwoman Gayle Ottmann said she's expecting a large crowd.

“(The unions) would have to agree to open their contracts for discussion on that topic. If they choose not to, we have no recourse,” she said in a phone interview yesterday morning about the town's request that the unions forego the pay raises. “Unless something comes up that I don't know about right now, they’re declining to open them up.”

George Lovell, a coordinator with American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees, represents the public works and police departments. He said he thought “it would be wrong to characterize (the raise freeze) as being rejected,” though he wouldn't comment on specifics.

The public works and firefighters contracts aren't up for renegotiation this year, but the new police contract has been in the works for the last nine months, Lovell said, and a federal mediator, used when negotiations have grown difficult, was brought in to help complete the contract.

“I would say that negotiations are ongoing,” Lovell said. “I don't think that it's a good idea for either side to be making public comments about the status of those negotiations.”

It's unlikely, Lovell said, that the two sides would come to an agreement in time for Thursday's budget meeting.

Alan Beebe, president of the town's firefighters union, said Rieseberg sent him an e-mail on Dec. 4 broaching the subject, but the town never formally requested that the union reopen the contract.

“Our response,” Beebe said, “was that you have to bargain the issue.”

Beebe and other firefighters union representatives have devised some money-saving efforts for their department and plan to meet with Rieseberg this afternoon, Beebe said, although he wouldn't detail the union's proposals.

“We're willing to negotiate with the town, and we have been,” he said. “We're just trying to do it the right way.”

Police Chief Glenn Cutting wouldn't comment on the police contract, but he said losing officers would devastate the department.

“That puts us back probably 20 years with staffing levels,” Cutting said. “Whether you're cutting unfilled or people positions, it's a huge impact on what we do.”

Reductions, he said, would hamper response time, inflate an already growing number of overtime shifts and potentially increase officers' mistakes because of the extended hours and added responsibilities.

“In reality, if you have five people with a shovel and now you've got two or three,” Cutting said, “the job is not going to get done when it should get done.”

Public Works Director Rich Menge also declined to comment on contract talks but did say that any layoffs would make the department's operations much more difficult.

“It's going to have a big impact on us,” he said. “We're already pretty thin.”

Rieseberg said he knows many departments are already short-staffed and would feel even more strain with job losses, but leaving the bill with taxpayers is not a good alternative.

“It's an extraordinary set of circumstances,” Rieseberg said. “It's the worst economy since the Great Depression by most accounts.”

Board members originally wanted to eradicate any tax rate increase, Selectboard member Chuck Wooster said, but numbers showed they would have to lay off a dozen or more town employees, so, instead, Wooster hopes to shoot for an inflation-tied 3 percent hike, though he won't know what's feasible until Thursday.

If the town and the unions can't come to an agreement by the time the vote arrives, Wooster said the Board could institute a Plan B, of sorts, that would implore Rieseberg and the unions to find a resolution.

“We could just set a certain figure,” Wooster said, “and we could leave it to the town manager and the union to get to it.”

Even if the Board cuts personnel for the sake of the tax rate, Wooster said, voters could decide at March's Town Meeting to keep those employees and bear the financial burden.

For now, Wooster said he and Selectboard members will try to find a solution that doesn't impose too significant a strain on taxpayers while also not crippling town departments.

“It's kind of a tightrope walk at this point,” he said, “and we're hoping to get across.”

John Woodrow Cox can be reached at 603-727-3305 or jcox@vnews.com.