Pittsburgh union leaders had cordial meetings with Mayor Luke Ravenstahl and members of Pittsburgh City Council Thursday on the mayor's parking privatization plan, even as worries rumbled through their ranks about the threat of citywide spending cuts and layoffs if the deal is not approved.

The city's employee pension plan is only about one-quarter funded and it will be taken over by the state next year without some kind of rescue plan. Mr. Ravenstahl wants a private lease of government-owned parking garages and meters, generating an estimated $200 million for the fund, and says he will be forced to implement $30 million in cuts next year if council votes the lease down.

Some council members are questioning that budget-cut number -- saying it would be much lower -- but it is causing tremors already.

"To do nothing would be irresponsible -- somebody's got to do something," said Joe King, president of the firefighters union. "We can't have any form of takeover. The mayor's plan is the best out there publicly."

So far the mayor's plan for a 50-year lease of the parking assets is the only one on the table because council members -- in a deal reached with the administration -- are waiting for bids from private operators to be submitted Wednesday. Once that happens, the clock starts ticking toward a decision by late October on the lease and other promised pension-saving options.

The other big date on the calendar is Sept. 22, when the mayor will deliver a 2011 budget to the state oversight board detailing his $30 million in cuts, which would amount to a roughly 10 percent drop in all city spending. In the private meetings Thursday, Mr. Ravenstahl did not tell union leaders the number of jobs that might be affected, but did say every city department -- from the police and fire bureaus to public works and the mayor's own office -- is being told to budget for a 10 percent cut.

The exercise, by design, brings back bad memories for unions gutted during the city's march toward distressed status in 2003-04. The number of school crossing guards went from 227 to 117 after those cuts.

"Hopefully [the pension bailout] goes the way we hope it will go and everything will be fine. I'm very optimistic about things," said Marlene Lamanna, president of the guards' union, Service Employees International Union Local 192B.

The threat of $30 million in cuts surprised some union members who thought only new employees would be impacted by long-term pension woes, said Mr. King. "That was really a wake up call to the general membership," he said.

The city's yearly pension obligation of $45 million would rise to $72 million with a state takeover, an increase of $27 million (which the administration rounds up to $30 million). But under the city's Act 47 recovery plan, the city is instead paying $60 million as part of efforts to tamp down its long-term debt.

Some council members are arguing the city's real budget hit in a pension takeover would be $12 million, though Mr. Ravenstahl said in the Thursday meetings that the city could no longer afford to pay the extra contributions and he was sticking with the $30 million figure.

"I shared my concern at the meeting that we need to make sure we're using the same playbook and the same numbers," said councilwoman Natalia Rudiak. "I refuse to use that [$30 million number] as ammunition to scare the public. I find that offensive."

Councilman Ricky Burgess, an ardent supporter of the mayor's parking lease plan, said the $30 million figure and the threatened cuts are for real. "It means reduced police officers, firefighters, less street paving, less services. That's unacceptable," he said.

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