SAN DIEGO -- Mayor Jerry Sanders and City Council President Scott Peters Wednesday reached a compromise on competing ballot initiatives aimed at overhauling San Diego's pension system.

The compromise would create a hybrid pension plan for newly hired, nonpublic safety employees that combines a conventional retirement plan with a 401(k)-type savings plan.

Taxpayers would save about $22.5 million annually by the time the entire city workforce is under the plan, Sanders told the City Council's Rules, Open Government and Intergovernmental Relations Committee. Enrolling all city employees could take about 25 years, he said, adding that short-term savings would be significantly less.

"I believe this compromise plan to be a major step in the right direction and keeping with the type of reform we need to implement," Sanders said.

The Rules Committee voted to forward the proposal to the full council to decide whether it should be put on the November ballot. The meeting is tentatively set for July 14.

Committee members also directed the mayor's office to start talks with the affected labor unions.

The proposal, reached during a committee recess, is a toned-down version of what Sanders sought, but is not as lucrative for municipal employees as what Peters had called for.

Pensions would be based on the average pay of employees in their final three years, rather than the worker's highest salary. The compromise deal decreases the amount the city contributes to the pension system, caps the amount that can be collected and prohibits workers from retiring before age 60.

"I am very pleased that we have gotten to this point and hope that we can all rally behind this one proposal because it achieves meaningful reform," Sanders told the committee.

After the meeting, Joan Raymond, president of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees Local 127, said the proposal wouldn't give the city's blue-collar workers enough to retire on.

"It's a little better than what the mayor had on the table last time, but it's worse than what Scott Peters had proposed."

"Again, it is penalizing people that are blue-collar because they have to work until they are 65 to get even this," she said.

Peters called on the City Council to consider simply changing the pension plan for new hires rather than leaving it up to voters.

"If we can avoid the ballot, we should make every attempt to do that," Peters told his colleagues on the committee.

Talks broke down last month between Sanders and Local 127, the San Diego Municipal Employees Association and Deputy City Attorney's Association over his pension reform plans.

Amid the stalemate, the City Council split 4-4 on imposing a one-year contract on the unions that included the mayor's pension reforms.

At the time, Sanders said there was no point in returning to the bargaining table and sought a ballot initiative instead.

Raymond said she had "guarded optimism" that the sides could now reach some sort of consensus.

"Our big problem with that is we are going to have to make a concession," Raymond said. "By doing that, we don't get anything for it."

Raymond, however, suggested that it may be in the best interests of union members to find some middle ground before voters decide for them.

"Whatever goes to the ballot is going to pass, because the public doesn't understand all the ins and outs of a pension proposal," Raymond said.

"It's very complicated. So all they are going to hear is a campaign."