BAKERSFIELD, Calif. -- The idea of using the ballot box as a way of cutting down on city pension costs, has been put on hold. Wednesday afternoon the Bakersfield City Council held a special meeting to look at possibly letting voters decide the issue.

Councilmembers Zach Scrivner and David Couch, who had brought up the idea and some proposals last month before the council, rescinded their requests to city staff to put a measure rolling back future city employees' pension levels on the ballot, at least for the time being, because of legal reasons.

"If we do go to the ballot, the most important thing is to make sure that any such measure is going to be defensible, legally," Scrivner said during the special session.

Last month, Scrivner proposed reducing future city employees' pensions by putting a measure on the June primary ballot.

"I think it's imperative that we go back to the old retirement system that we had, prior to the council's action that increased benefits by 50-percent," Scrivner said in an interview with ABC 23.

That action, in the early 2000's, sas led to major increases in benefits paid out by the city. According to Scrivner they've gone from $4 million ten years ago to $25 million now.

"We're having a harder and harder time to pay for our critical services," Scrivner said. "And personnel costs, and particularly the pension costs, are a big, big drain on our resources."

City safety employees, like police and fire, are presently under the 3-percent at 50 plan. Meaning for every year of work, for up to 30 years, the employee gets 3-percent of their salary when they retire at age 50 or later, potentially earning 90-percent of their last salary every year while retired.

Scrivner and Couch had proposed reducing the number to 2-percent a year with varying retirement ages and putting the idea to voters. An idea that doesn't sit well with safety and non-safety unions.

"SEIU has negotiated in the past and granted concessions fairly recently in the last couple of years, and we don't like being run around in this fashion," said Tiffany Horton, a city employee and member of SEIU 521.

The Bakersfield Police Officers Association says its looking into the legality of the ballot measure, but so too has city staff. Staff informed Scrivner of new information this week, which is why he and Couch have delayed their push for the ballot in favor of negotiating, specifically with the safety unions where talks have stalled.

"And if we're not able to come to a consensus with them to go in November with the ballot initiative," Scrivner said.

That decision would have to be made in June, which gives the city and the unions four months to make progress on reducing future employees' benefit costs to the city.

Scrivner acknowledged that negotiations with SEIU 521 do not need to be expedited as quickly as with the safety unions because SEIU has a contract with reduced pension numbers already.