With Los Angeles city government facing a $535 million deficit in the coming fiscal year, Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa said today 2,580 layoffs could be avoided if city workers increase contributions to their retirement funds and defer scheduled raises.

Though the budget for fiscal year 2009-10, which starts July 1, is expected to include $300 million in service cuts, higher fees for Angelenos and other revenue-generating measures, 2,800 city employees could be laid off if no other actions are taken, Villaraigosa said.

A proposal to have all city workers, including police officers and firefighters, work one unpaid hour a week, increase their retirement contributions by 2 percent and defer scheduled raises would save 2,580 of those jobs, according to the mayor. "The road ahead will not be easy, but there are thousands of jobs at stake, thousands of families looking to us to do the right thing," Villaraigosa said at a City Hall news conference.

The president of Service Employees International Union Local 721, which is part of the Coalition of L.A. City Unions, said union officials prefer an early retirement plan to layoffs.

"Whenever people lose jobs, they obviously are a drain on the economy and that isn't really what we need," said Bob Schoonover. "This is probably the scariest time in our lifetime but, on the other hand, we've all gone through bad budgets before and down years, and even a couple bad down years, and eventually the economy does rebound and I'm sure this economy will rebound."

The president of the Los Angeles Police Protective League said any cuts to the police department would jeopardize public safety.

"Mayor Villaraigosa's proposal to reduce by one hour the amount each LAPD officer works per week is the equivalent of cutting 250 experienced officers from our city. We are disappointed that the mayor has fallen back on his promise to make public safety a top priority with his administration," said LAPPL President Paul Weber.

The result of the cuts could be longer response times and fewer resources that allow officers to proactively prevent crime, he said. Because it can take up to six months for a layoff to take effect, the mayor has already directed the Personnel Department to begin the work of firing 400 employees.

During last year's budget deliberations, the city eliminated 767 positions, 350 of which were filled. None of those employees were laid off. The city expects to close the budget shortfall by increasing fees associated with municipal services, although the mayor declined to specify which services will be impacted. Last year, the city hiked the prices of garbage collection, parking meters, pet adoptions and playing a round of golf on a city course. "I will be making those proposals in my budget later on, but I can tell you, if those don't work or if they're rejected somehow, this number (of layoffs) will just go up," Villaraigosa said.

When his budget is delivered to the Los Angeles City Council on April 20, Villaraigosa is expected to propose a number of public-private partnerships that could lead to the privatization of facilities such as the zoo, Convention Center, parking garages and parking meters.

Revenue could also be generated by selling advertising space on the Convention Center and computers in city libraries. "When revenue is generated from advertising opportunities, from the sale of some of some of the city assets, even with all of that we're at 2,800 layoffs. That's why I'm saying the magnitude of this ... we've never seen anything like this," Villaraigosa said.