The highest-paid city employees would get smaller paychecks under a budget-balancing option under consideration by Santa Fe officials.

Although details are sparse, at least two city councilors want to trim salaries for top earners by 3 percent or more — a move they say would keep the city ledger closer to the black for the fiscal year that begins July 1.

Councilor Miguel Chavez introduced a resolution early this spring to decrease wages for most city workers depending on how their salaries fit into the overall city structure.

He offered options he says would save more than $2 million in taxpayer dollars and help plug a $4 million gap between expected spending and reserves. Chavez suggested the city divide the roster of employees in half based on wages and take 5 percent from the top earners and 3 percent from the bottom earners. Another proposal would split the workforce into thirds and take 5 percent from the top third and 3 percent from the bottom two-thirds.

But until Monday, it appeared Chavez might be a lone wolf on the idea.

Councilor Matthew Ortiz now says he's ready to take 3 percent from the top third of workers as a companion measure to other budget-balancing moves that officials have already agreed on, including using some money from reserve accounts and hiking fees charged to the electric company.

"It should be just common sense that you are looking to collapse some of these salaries from the top," Ortiz said. "I know that is what is happening in the private sector. I hope that the majority of the council sees this incremental approach that we have come up with at the Finance Committee, where we are taking a little bit from a couple of different sources in order to make a more sustainable budget."

Using rough calculations, Ortiz said at this week's Finance Committee that such a cut to the top third — generally department and division directors — appears to be worth about $770,000.

Mayor David Coss and Councilor Carmichael Dominguez both said Monday night that they adamantly oppose wage cuts. The two are among five members of the governing body who at first backed a property-tax proposal, then signed on to a plan to tap city cash reserves instead.

"We will cause such a compaction problem and such a morale problem and damage our career public employees," Coss said at the committee meeting.

Proposed wage cuts won't necessarily affect all the highest paid city workers. Chavez has proposed to exempt those whose last pay increase was before July 2008.

The city's largest labor union remains opposed to the idea because, depending on how administrators implement the pay-cut plan, it could slice into wages of union members. Joe Lovato, treasurer for the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees, which represents about 800 city workers, said his organization is against any pay cuts.

If city administrators decide to categorize workers based on gross wages and not just on hourly pay, he said, it would hit some who earn as little as $22 an hour.

Further, using across-the-board pay cuts to cure a budget problem in the city's general fund won't fix long-term gaps between tax revenue and the cost of providing services, he said. "If they cut us, they are cutting from the community," Lovato said in an interview Tuesday. "It don't sit well with me."

If councilors see pay cuts as the only way out, he said, the savings for cutting nonunion employees who earn more than $35 per hour would far outweigh the savings that the city would see from dinging lower-earning workers.

"If they are talking cuts because times are extreme, they need to really do their research," he said.

AFSCME members received pay increases of 4 percent during three of the past four fiscal years under terms of a contract with the city. During one of those years, the increase was offset by a furlough program. Any changes to the pay scale for union workers is subject to collective bargaining.

The city Finance Committee meets next on May 16, but a final budget vote by the full City Council isn't scheduled until May 25.

Contact Julie Ann Grimm at 986-3017 or jgrimm@sfnewmexican.com.

CITY'S TOP EARNERS

Some of the highest city salaries:

• Robert Romero, city manager, $61.54 an hour ($128,003 a year)

• Geno Zamora, city attorney, $55.77 ($116,002)

• Kathryn Raveling, Finance Department director, $55.67 ($115,808)

• Ike Pino, director of Public Works and Community Services departments, $52 ($108,160)

• Brian Snyder, Public Utilities Department director, $52 ($108,160)

• Matthew O'Reilly, Land Use Department director, $50.50 ($105,040)

• Raymond Rael, acting police chief and human-resources compliance officer, $49.04 ($101,995)

• Barbara Salas, fire chief, $48.75 ($101,404)

• Jim Montman, airport director, $48.74 ($101,376)

• Regina Wheeler, Solid Waste Division director, $48 ($99,840)

• Vickie Gage, acting Human Resources director, $46.84 ($97,423)

• Teresita Garcia, assistant finance director, $46.70 ($97,139)

• Mark Allen, assistant city attorney, $46.52 ($96,757)

• Jan Snyder and Erik Litzenberg, assistant fire chiefs, $46.17 ($96,038)

• Brian Romero, interim Wastewater Division director, $45.43 ($94,491)

• Nick Schiavo, acting Housing and Economic Development Department director, $45 ($93,600)

• John Romero, acting Traffic Division director, $44.26 ($92,069)

• Eric Martinez, acting Roadways and Trails Division director, $44.26 ($92,069)

• Rick Carpenter, water division project supervisor, $44.17 ($91,880)

• Gillian Alessio and William Johnson, deputy police chiefs, $43.26 ($89,981)

• Thomas Williams, Information Technology Division director, $42.20 ($87,783)

• Yolanda Vigil, city clerk, $42.03 ($87,416)

Some other public salaries:

• Sheila Ortego, president of Santa Fe Community College, $173,000 a year

• Katherine Miller, Santa Fe County manager, $155,000

• Rick May, state Department of Finance and Administration, $125,000

• Bobbie Gutierrez, Santa Fe Public Schools superintendent, $115,600

• Sidonie Squier, state Human Services Department secretary, $117,000

• Chief information technology officer at Santa Fe Community College, $108,885

How they compare

• Average blue-collar member of the local American Federation of City, State and Municipal Employees, $37,775.

• Minimum wage in the city of Santa Fe, $9.85 an hour, or $20,488 a year.