Republican Gov. M. Jodi Rell has a plan to make the system of binding arbitration — which replaced the right to strike for teachers, police officers and other public employees — more friendly to cities and towns.

The plan includes giving communities the option of suspending the arbitration process — in which a three-member panel weighs the arguments and imposes an award — for two years. Under the proposal, if management and labor in a town could not reach a settlement during that period, the union employees would be forced to accept a zero increase. Rell has sold the plan as a way to save money for budget-strapped localities, but sources at the Capitol said that staunch union opposition makes it unlikely that the plan will get though the Democrat-controlled legislature.

Eric Bailey, a spokesman for AFT- Connecticut, which represents 28,000 teachers, school nurses, tutors, paraprofessionals and other school workers, said that unions would almost certainly challenge the measure in court if it ever became law.

"This kind of thing has been floated for years," Bailey said Monday. "The fact is, more often than not, settlements are reached outside of arbitration. It may not be a perfect system, but we gave up the right to strike, and I don't think anyone would want to go back to the days of striking teachers."

But some mayors see this as a missed opportunity to repair a system that local Democrats and Republicans alike view as costly and flawed — and one that grows more onerous as the economy worsens.

Mayor Scott Slifka of West Hartford, a Democrat, said that the problem with Rell's proposal, which also includes other town-friendly reforms, is the focus on suspending the process.

Slifka said that element would act as a disincentive for unions to talk with administration officials about concessions before their contracts have expired, as the unions in West Hartford are considering now.

"If they know they might get a 'zero' later, what is the incentive to talk to the mayor now about reopening their contract?" Slifka said.

One of the reforms that Rell proposed has to do with money that towns hold in reserve as part of their "rainy day" funds. Communities keep money aside because bond rating agencies want them to. But arbitrators sometimes include this money, which could be 10 percent to 13 percent of the operating budget, when assessing a community's ability to pay. Under Rell's plan, the panel of arbitrators would be required to presume that about 10 percent of a community's budget is not available to pay for an award to employees.

That directive, coupled with Connecticut's sinking economy, might set the stage for lower arbitration awards, Slifka reasoned.

"It would help us establish a new 'floor' for future negotiations, but if we're suspending the process, we'll never get that chance," Slifka said.

Jeffrey Beckham, an undersecretary at the state Office of Policy and Management, the governor's budget-writing agency, said that there's no reason why the two sides can't keep talking, even in the absence of binding arbitration.

"The governor thought, in this economic downturn, that we ought to have a 'timeout' from ever-increasing personnel costs. But the points about long-term reform are well taken. The system certainly needs them," Beckham said.