A two-part solution

What isn’t clear, even at this late hour, is what kind of alternative the mayor does want.

While Boston firefighters are waiting to see if the City Council will approve the whopping pay increase they have (tentatively) won in arbitration, Mayor Thomas M. Menino dropped a bomb yesterday — in the form of a letter to the councilors, urging them to push the union harder for more concessions before the vote.

Menino’s overwrought missive — I wonder who wrote it? — came on the heels of firefighters agreeing to defer a 2.5 percent raise they are due this year. That concession, made last week and valued at $4.3 million, was intended to swing a majority of councilors into the yes column, and it might.

But Menino sought yesterday to regain control of the issue by warning councilors that they risk joining the ranks of such mismanaged cities as Los Angeles and Harrisburg, Pa., by passing the deal as it stands now. He contended that a failure to make tough decisions has both cities hurtling toward bankruptcy.

There are better options than the contract on the table, Menino wrote, and he urged the councilors to pursue them.

I have been opposed to passing this contract from the second I finished reading the arbitrator’s decision. The size of the raise seems out of line to me, and the idea of paying people to agree to drug and alcohol testing is abhorrent. Employees shouldn’t get extra money to be drug- and alcohol-free at work.

Still, the latest Menino missive doesn’t go down well, either.

The mayor barely acknowledges that he lost in arbitration, or that the union has made a significant concession. And while the letter ends on a lofty note of finding a “higher road,’’ he doesn’t say what that road might be.

If Menino wants out of this decision, that’s fine. But he has an obligation to say what he is willing to give instead, which he pointedly does not do.

Actually, there is a simple way out of this impasse. MIT labor expert Thomas Kochan — hired to advise the City Council — has pushed a two-part solution, and the union has already agreed to half of it. Kochan’s idea is for the union to defer one year of the raise — done — and for it to also agree to a one-year extension of the contract, which is due to expire on June 30.

Such an extension would ensure that the deferred 2.5 percent raise due June 30, 2011, will be the only raise firefighters get next fiscal year. If the contract expires when it is now scheduled, the union would be in a position to ask for another raise next year in addition to the one now deferred. That would seriously dilute the largesse of Kelly’s concession gesture.

The union — and its apologists on the council — has balked at this, noting that the city at one point rejected the idea of a five-year contract. So what? Positions change at the bargaining table all the time. The city rejected a five-year proposal because it deemed the pay increases in the fifth year to be far too high. The issues are different now.

Look, here’s what should really happen: The firefighters should defer $4.3 million and the city should devote that money to saving at least some of the four public libraries it plans to close. That would be a win for the only people who really should matter here — the public.

Like many disputes, this has become as much a clash of personalities as a dispute over the public purse. This turned personal years ago, and if you think that isn’t part of the reason this issue is dragging on, think again.

The City Council is expected to vote on funding the contract as early as Wednesday, a prospect that should make both sides nervous.

With at least three councilors undecided, it could go either way. If I were Menino or Kelly, I wouldn’t leave it in their hands.

Adrian Walker is a Globe columnist. He can be reached at walker@globe.com.