Following weeks of lengthy debate over how to overcome a $38.8 million general fund deficit, the Long Beach City Council on Tuesday unanimously approved the city's 2010 fiscal year budget in a relatively quick afternoon meeting.

Despite the approved $2.5 billion budget scheduled to go into effect Oct. 1, several issues, including contract negotiations with various city worker unions, remain unresolved.

On Tuesday, council members approved just over $20 million in deficit reductions, with the remaining $18.5 million in needed cuts still dependant on the ongoing union negotiations.

During the Tuesday meeting, the council approved a renegotiated contract with the police union that would see police department employees receive a 9.5 percent increase over five years instead of the 11 percent one-year increase their previous contract with the city mandated for 2010.

The vote on the new police contract, which will save the city $7.5 million in 2010 and $15 million over five years, offered one of the only moments of contention during the meeting when Council member Gary DeLong announced he would be voting no on the contract because it did not include revisions to the police union pension system.

The police and fire pension plans have taken fire in the past as one of the leading contributors to the rising portion of the city budget dedicated to public safety.

The move took several council members and police union officials by surprise, with Police Officers Association president Steve James saying a no vote, even by one member, would be a "slap in the face" to officers.

"This [contract] needs to pass by a 9-0 vote," said James. "They [the officers] deserve it."

The new police contract passed 8-1 with DeLong sticking to his guns as the sole nay vote.

Despite the approved contract concessions and other spending cuts, the new budget will still require 297 city positions to be cut and 150 workers to be eliminated, though these numbers were scaled back slightly from previously announced levels of 312 cuts and 161 layoffs. In addition, 30 police department positions remain on the chopping block with the fire department set to lose four positions.

If concessions can not be reached with the remaining city worker unions, the new budget calls for further city worker furloughs and/or layoffs, though city officials say these can be modified depending on the results of the ongoing contract negotiations.

In addition to scaling back planned city employee cuts in several areas, the council also restored several previously proposed cuts, including full funding for one of the city's ocean rescue boats, partial funding for police truancy patrols, partial funding for the Arts Council, partial funding for the Long Beach Museum of Art Foundation, partial funding for the Department of Parks, Recreation and Marine and partial funding for Rancho Los Alamitos and Rancho Los Cerritos. Hours for the city library's Homework Helpers program and Spanish language simulcasts for council meetings were also removed from those to be cut in the new budget.

The council also approved rescinding previously planned cuts to downtown's Fire Station 1 and the East Side's Fire Station 18. The council also approved adding a sixth firefighter to Station 14, which under the budget would operate with a "light force." However, the restored funding to these stations came at the cost of Station 19 at Clark Avenue and Monlaco Road on the east side of the airport, which will now be reduced to a less-than-24-hour "light force" also.

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