Hawai'i mayors want the flexibility to order furloughs for county workers this fiscal year as a precaution as county budgets tumble toward deficits.

In contract terms sent to the Lingle administration yesterday in preparation for an offer to the Hawai'i Government Employees Association, the mayors ask for the option to order up to 18 furlough days this fiscal year and 24 furlough days next fiscal year.

Honolulu Mayor Mufi Hannemann, at a news conference at Honolulu Hale, said the mayors have already approved balanced budgets for this fiscal year and would likely not need to furlough county workers, but still want the option in case the budget situation worsens.

Counties would also continue to cover 60 percent of county worker healthcare costs this fiscal year and may enter into supplemental agreements with the union for next year, depending on whether health care premium costs escalate.

The Lingle administration's position has been to freeze health care spending for state workers at last fiscal year's levels, so state workers have had to absorb a 23.4 percent increase in premiums since July.

Gov. Linda Lingle has said the offer to the HGEA, the state's largest public-sector union, has been delayed in part because none of the mayors had signed off on the potential settlement. Under state labor law, at least one mayor must endorse the offer, which sources have described as 18 furlough days this fiscal year and 24 furlough days next fiscal year for state workers.

Hannemann said the mayors would back the offer if the administration accepts their contract terms.

After the Lingle administration sends the offer to the HGEA, the union will put the settlement up for a ratification vote by its 29,600 members.

Hannemann, who has just returned from a trip to the Mainland and Japan, insisted that the mayors needed time to review the contract language and are not acting as obstacles to a deal.

"So I want to be clear, the mayors are not holding up this agreement at all," he said. "We have said from the beginning: settlement, settlement, settlement based on furloughs."

Hannemann said he does not anticipate that mayors will call for furloughs this fiscal year but are almost certain to order furloughs next year, when the counties will experience the full impact of a decline in property tax revenues because of the recession.

"We always knew that our problems, fiscally, our challenges are next year," he said. "And we will definitely, all of us, will be using furlough days next fiscal year."

Hannemann said the potential settlement with the HGEA could be used as a template for negotiations with the blue-collar United Public Workers. The UPW's public-safety unit is in binding arbitration with the state, but other units are awaiting a final offer from the Lingle administration.

Lingle suggested Thursday that the drag in negotiations could spark a second round of layoffs beyond the 1,100 state workers expected to lose their jobs in November.

Hannemann said the mayors, to his knowledge, had not seen the terms of a final offer to the UPW. He dismissed suggestions by the governor that the mayors have delayed settlements with the unions.

"She's really got to stop doing this finger-pointing on this whole situation here," the mayor said. "We are just as motivated as she is, as the unions are, to resolve a settlement."

Lingle has said she will ask the state Legislature next session to change the collective bargaining process to help avoid future complications between the state and the counties, which often have different interests in contract talks.

The mayors have been negotiating as a group, so Lingle has had to get agreement from all four mayors instead of the one mayor required under state law. Asked whether this would set an unrealistic precedent for future labor talks, Hannemann — a potential candidate for governor next year — said he believes it is the right way.

"There is strength in numbers," he said. "The counties are very committed to working together. And I think we're seeing results as a result of that."