After few months of heated discussions and panic by cops and firefighters, the Dallas Police and Fire Pension Board has officially asked its members to cut their benefits.

But the election, officially approved by the board on Thursday, will be the beginning of an effort to save the failing retirement system. An approval of the changes would begin a complex and painful process. Dallas taxpayers would inevitably take a hit and the pension officials would need the city's buy-in.

Board chairman Sam Friar said, "This is a starting point, absolutely”.

Still, Friar said, that it was an important step. Trustees hoped that the vote will serve as the extent of their members' concession, although the city will probably ask for more.

Originally, the solution on the members' ballots was devised to cover the majority of the multibillion-dollar long-term funding gap. But hundreds of millions of dollars in withdrawals from lump-sum pension accounts, sparked by concerns and rumors about the board's plans, have made the proposed benefit changes less potent and the city's share of the solution even greater.

Pension officials could ask for up to $1 billion cash from the city. It's a cost that will almost certainly be borne by taxpayers in some way: higher taxes, significant cuts in city services or a combination of both.

Friar said, "We're aware of that, and we're sorry for that. This is just the situation that we're in."

Council member Lee Kleinman, the city's liaison to the pension system, said he doesn't know how much of a responsibility the city has to fix problems caused by bad investments and overly generous benefits.

He said, “I don't think there is the public interest or will to finance $1 billion on a plan that was not being managed by the city. We're going to have to look for areas of excessive benefit to bridge the gap in what the board put forward and the outstanding liability."

Dallas city leaders haven't officially offered any solutions. Instead, they've waited to see what pension officials bring to the table.

But city officials had been consulting firm Deloitte analyze the pension for them.

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By Prakriti Neogi