There is good news and bad news for Pittsburgh City Council on Mayor Luke Ravenstahl's parking privatization plan.

The good news is he is giving it another full month, through the end of October, to debate his complicated plan to spin off control of parking garages and street meters for 50 years, and pump $200 million or more into the city's sickly pension plan.

The bad news is his official 2010 city budget is due in two weeks and it will contain almost $30 million in across-the-board spending cuts, possibly decimating the ranks of unionized city workers with a lot of pull on Grant Street. The mayor will go over the plans in private meetings with union leaders and council members this morning.

Council was expected to vote on the parking plan by late September in the original schedule proposed by Mr. Ravenstahl two months ago. The new deadline is the last week in October. The city will get bids from private parking operators next week, forward the winning bid to council the week of Sept. 20, then require a final vote by Oct. 29. The bids expire Nov. 1.

The heat will be turned up on the nine council members throughout October after the mayor delivers his slash-and-burn 2011 budget Sept. 22 to the state overseers in the Intergovernmental Cooperation Authority.

The authority will not accept budgets that are balanced with non-approved revenues (such as the proposed parking lease payment) so the city will be required to produce one that assumes the pension fund will be taken over by the state, triggering big new payouts from the city. A new report by the city's actuary indicates the city's 2011 pension payment would increase from $45 million to $72 million with a state takeover, the mayor's office said.

The budget will show what almost "$30 million in cuts really means, department by department. It's not going to be pretty. It's going to be ugly," mayoral spokeswoman Joanna Doven said.

The mayor's office should know how the ICA feels about unbalanced budgets, responded council's finance chairman William Peduto; the oversight board rejected Mr. Ravenstahl's budget last year when it included an unapproved 1 percent tuition tax.

Mr. Peduto and other privatization skeptics made a deal with Mr. Ravenstahl not to forward alternative proposals for saving the pension fund until the parking operator bids are opened next week. Council members including Patrick Dowd have been working with city Controller Michael Lamb, academics and others to work the numbers on other proposals.

"I am convinced there is an alternative that satisfies all the goals the controller and I have been talking about -- keeping these assets public, fixing the fund and making the Pittsburgh Parking Authority more entrepreneurial -- that doesn't including a 50-year lease," Mr. Dowd said.

Mr. Peduto took issue with the mayor's $30 million figure, saying the city currently pays $60 million into pension costs, meaning the real budget hit from a state takeover would be less than $15 million.

"It's a scare tactic. It was the same way with the tuition tax last year," Mr. Peduto said. "There are multiple options for saving $15 million without hurting the city and selling this asset."

Mr. Ravenstahl called on another secret weapon -- 92-year-old former Mayor Sophie Masloff -- Wednesday to further help his public relations effort for the parking proposal. Mrs. Masloff taped a YouTube video in the mayor's office that notes she proposed controversial privatization plans of the zoo, aviary, Phipps Conservatory and Schenley Park golf course that ultimately proved successful.

It will be posted Monday on the city's revamped official website.

"I'm sold on it. I've been through the various plans and don't see an alternative," Mrs. Masloff said in an interview. "Somebody has to pay. I don't see any other viable solutions," she said.

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