This is the worst of times without any of the best of times for public officials attempting to balance state and municipal budgets.

With the budget Gov. Carcieri announced Tuesday, Mayor Scott Avedisian said yesterday that on top of a proposed $6 million reduction in the reimbursements from the phase out of the motor vehicle tax in the current year, the city faces a $13.7 million cut next year. The mayor says schools must share in those cuts to the extent that city revenues fund them. That means schools would have to cut $3.6 million from their operations this year plus face an $8 million reduction in city funding next year.

School officials are saying further reductions in the current budget would be practically impossible since the system is obligated to provide 180 days of school time and programs are in place.

As for next year, Superintendent Peter Horoschak doesn’t know what to expect. He notes that in both the supplemental and 2010-11 state budget, the General Assembly has the final say and lawmakers haven’t acted yet.

As a result he says, “We are going forward with the budget for next year with a lot of unknowns.” He said the challenge is, “how to manage the decline in revenues in a responsible way.”

Horoschak also said legislators need to take “the bull by the horns” and make revisions to the pension system and cut out mandates that would save schools.

Mayor Avedisian has already turned to city unions to help and yesterday he disclosed that an agreement has been reached with the leadership of one union, although he would not name the group or say what are the possible concessions. When the governor made cuts in state revenues late in last year’s budget, municipal employees took pay cuts ranging from 3 to 5 percent for the last four months of the fiscal year.

Avedisian said he expects the agreement reached this year will be brought to the membership within the next week to ten days. If ratified it would be made public at that time.

And if that’s the case Christopher Friel, School Committee Chairman, thinks school employees – including teachers – should share in those concessions.

“All city employees should act in unison. I don’t see any other way to go,” Friel said. “If this (the cuts in funding proposed in the governor’s supplemental budget) is to go through there has to be a united front.”

So far, however, the committee hasn’t responded to a letter signed by the mayor, City Council President Bruce Place and Council Finance Committee Chairman Ray Gallucci calling on schools to share in the state cut proportionally. Friel said the letter would be discussed at a meeting scheduled for last night.

Already, Friel added, schools have taken steps to offset a $1 million reduction in state aid included in Carcieri’s supplemental budget. The 2010-11 proposal would cut Warwick aid by another $1.3 million.

Friel understands the mayor’s logic of proportionally reducing aid to schools, although he asks if that is going to be the approach the city should look at the overall reduction between the city and schools. As he understands from the letter, schools would be expected to take their hit from the state plus share in about 60 percent of the cut to the city.

Regardless of how reductions in state funding is handled, Avedisian is irked that the governor suggests cities and towns have been slow to gain union concessions and notes that over the last ten years state aid to the city has been on a downward trend that now totals $34 million. He points to the pay reductions taken by city unions to balance last year’s budget and consolidation efforts with Cranston and East Greenwich as measures that have been taken, or are being worked on.

To illustrate the magnitude of the supplemental budget cut, Avedisian said if the entire Department of Public Works was shut down as of the first of this year, thereby eliminating all trash and recycling collections as well as snow removal and other highway work, the city could not save enough to cover the cut by June of this year.

“We have no choice but to give the council a revised budget that will pass on the state aid cut to schools,” he said.

The action also raises legal issues that surely will become part of the debate in the weeks to come.

Friel observes that state law requires the city to level fund schools, not that he is suggesting the committee should turn to the courts as a means to prevent city cuts. On the city side, the state was scheduled to make the quarterly reimbursement for the motor vehicle tax phase out on Feb. 1. That didn’t happen and there are questions how that is possible without legislative action, since the payment is set by law.

Avedisian thinks the governor’s budget enables the city to increase the motor vehicle tax, which was frozen under the phase out plan. He’s not prepared to do that and yesterday he ruled out a supplemental bill for the current year.

As for what would be left of state aid coming to the city under the governor’s 2010-11 budget, the mayor cited $965,000 in payment in lieu of taxes or PILOT funds, $650,000 in library aid and $3 million from public service corporation taxes that include 1 percent in meal and beverage receipt taxes.

Looking ahead doesn’t improve the picture either.

Flipping through the governor’s budget, the mayor said Carcieri is projecting a $362 million shortfall in the 2012 budget that continues to climb to $535.7 by the 2015 budget.

Is this an indicator that the recession is here to stay?

Avedisian said there has been some improvement in home prices and sales, but he’s not seeing more jobs and new businesses.

As for Carcieri’s plan to stimulate small business with tax cuts and other incentives, Avedisian said “it’s hard to applaud one thing when he’s decimating cities and towns.”