With a dramatic vote Tuesday to make unparalleled cuts to police and fire services, the Sacramento City Council stepped up pressure on public safety unions to agree to pension givebacks and other long-term salary concessions.

The message: Sacramento can no longer afford a benefits package that's richer than what most private sector and even many public sector employees receive.

"What we need to do is look at both pensions and health care (contributions)," said Councilman Jay Schenirer. "That's where the greatest increases (in cost) have been and it's where the world has changed the most over the past 10 years."

Sacramento's police officers and firefighters do not contribute to their CalPERS retirement accounts. City Hall picks up the entire tab for those workers – an arrangement agreed to several times by the City Council.

Most other city workers chip in 4 percent of their salaries to their PERS accounts. If public safety workers did the same, it would save the city more than $4.1 million a year, according to budget documents.

Overall, the city's contribution to CalPERS has increased by more than 50 percent in the past five years, a trend that is expected to continue, according to a recent audit and city budget officials.

Police officers who retire at age 50 receive 3 percent of their salaries in retirement benefits for every year of service. In other words, a cop who retires at 50 after working 25 years gets 75 percent of his salary in retirement.

Firefighters can retire at 55 with 3 percent of salary for each year worked.

Public employee pensions have come under scrutiny nationwide as the recession has caused tax revenue to shrivel. Sacramento faces a $39 million deficit for the upcoming fiscal year, and a $62 million gap extending into 2013.

"We're looking for real solutions to the budget and temporary fixes are not solutions," said Councilman Rob Fong, who along with council members Schenirer, Sandy Sheedy, Kevin McCarty, Bonnie Pannell and Darrell Fong voted for the cuts.

So far, the pressure has been met with silence.

Police union officials said Wednesday they had no interest in negotiating with the city until their contract expires in 2013. The fire union has proposed delaying a raise for one year, but a majority of the City Council is balking at any proposal that does not result in ongoing savings.

As a result, it appears more likely that more than 80 cops will be laid off on July 1 – the first time in recent memory the city has issued pink slips to police officers. Those cuts would result in a Police Department roughly the size of the force that patrolled the city more than a decade ago.

At the same time, cuts to the Fire Department would result in four rigs being placed on rotating "brownouts" – in which fire companies are shut down for 48 hours at a time – an increase from the two currently being shelved.

The council has three weeks before it must adopt a final budget, but changes are unlikely without labor concessions.

Brent Meyer, head of the police union, said his members told him Wednesday "they are not interested in making concessions." He said that sentiment stems from the union's decision in 2009 to agree to salary givebacks – a move they were told at the time would save the city millions in the years to come.

"The council is obviously holding the line, but we don't think the community is going to stand for that kind of cut to public safety," he said.

Jaymes Butler, head of the city firefighter union, said the council could avoid cuts to fire service by using the money it is putting in its rainy day fund this year.

If the council agreed to delay firefighter raises for one year, the savings – $1.9 million – would more than offset the savings of one fire company brownout, according to budget documents.

Mayor Kevin Johnson and council members Steve Cohn and Angelique Ashby voted against the public safety budget proposals.

Cohn proposed using roughly $4 million in economic reserve funding, combined with undetermined salary concessions from the public safety unions, to ease the cuts. The council rejected his motion.

Johnson said the city was "shortchanging the public trust" by slashing the police budget and that he would urge the police union to negotiate over cost-saving concessions. "They should lead by example, that's what they've done in the past," the mayor said.

Asked what his message was for the police union, Police Chief Rick Braziel urged the group to keep the city's residents foremost in their thinking.

"We need to remember who we serve," he said. "There are 500,000 people in the city of Sacramento. They had nothing to do with this fiscal crisis."

Still, Braziel said he understands the unions are there to serve their membership and must strike a "fine balance" in considering concessions.

"I don't envy them at all," he said.

© Copyright The Sacramento Bee. All rights reserved.

Call The Bee's Ryan Lillis, (916) 321-1085. Staff writer Kim Minugh contributed to this report.

• Read more articles by Ryan Lillis