Santa Fe city government and one of its employee labor unions came to agreement Wednesday about a contract for the rest of the fiscal year, but negotiations over cost-cutting from other labor contracts don't appear headed for a quick resolution.

The City Council approved an agreement with the Santa Fe Firefighters Association that sliced about $173,000 worth of incentive pay for union workers, including elimination of bonus pay when firefighters serve on wildland or hazardous-materials teams. Fire union employee wages and incentives total about $9 million each year, union President David Jenkins said.

Since the firefighter union has been working without a contract for about two years, Jenkins said this week's deal was a significant step.

"Everyone expected this to be a tough year," he said of union members, "but we were able to reach an agreement because both sides were able to put in the time and effort."

The City Council ordered the city manager to find $600,000 worth of budget savings in employee contracts for the fiscal year that began on July 1. City Manager Robert Romero said late Wednesday that an impasse has been declared in negotiations with the Police Officers Association. A meeting with a mediator is scheduled for Friday, he said.

Negotiations also are at a standstill with the city's largest collective-bargaining group — its branch of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees. City representatives and union negotiators already have tried mediation, Romero said, and the next step for those discussions is formal arbitration.

"The door is still open if we can figure out how to come to an agreement," Romero said, "but that is where we are officially."

Local AFSCME President Adrian Dalton said city management negotiators aren't making it easy for the union to play along. Instead of talking about a target of $218,000 in reductions in the contract, he said, the parties have been negotiating over language in the document.

"They want to strip us of our rights. That's what they want, and I just can't do that," Dalton said Wednesday night. "We have a city manager that just doesn't get it. There are a lot of things that are not clicking at City Hall."

Meanwhile, relations between the police union and the city have been strained in recent months as management and rank-and-file workers appeared in court to argue over whether the city manager appropriately terminated a police officer.

Police union President Adam Gallegos didn't return a phone message late Wednesday.

The City Council ordered incentive cuts as one way to balance a shortfall between projected gross-receipts tax revenues and planned spending.

City records reviewed this summer indicate AFSCME had about 788 members, most of them blue-collar city workers. The separate Santa Fe police union has 156 members, while the firefighter union represents 129 workers.

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