A divided Miami-Dade Commission reached a contentious compromise on Tuesday to save the jobs of hundreds of county workers who would otherwise have received pink slips.

By a 7-6 vote, commissioners imposed a controversial concession they had rejected earlier this month — but only after making it slightly smaller and agreeing to raid a trust fund that pays for employee healthcare claims.

Instead of requiring employees to contribute an additional 5 percent of their base pay toward health insurance, the county will force them to contribute 4 percent, bringing their total contribution to 9 percent.

To make up the difference, Miami-Dade will take $10 million from the approximately $90-million reserve fund that pays employee health-insurance claims.

Following the commission decision, Mayor Carlos Gimenez said his administration would rescind layoff notices sent over the past two weeks to 118 police officers, 17 corrections employees and at least 68 professionals and supervisors. The layoffs would have been effective Feb. 3.

Commissioners Lynda Bell, Esteban Bovo, Audrey Edmonson, Sally Heyman, Barbara Jordan, Dennis Moss and Rebeca Sosa voted for the compromise. Chairman Joe Martinez and Commissioners Bruno Barreiro, Jose “Pepe” Diaz, Jean Monestime, Javier Souto and Xavier Suarez voted against.

The pivotal vote came from Jordan, the only commissioner to switch sides after having opposed Gimenez’s extra 5-percent contribution on Jan. 5. Jordan, taking the reins early in the 10-hour commission meeting, put forth the compromise from the dais, saying she did not want county workers to lose their jobs.

“The level of unemployment in this community is still at a historic high,” she said. “I am not willing to support putting employees on the street.”

The mayor forced commissioners to re-think their decision with a stroke of his veto pen earlier this month. Commissioners did not have the required nine of 13 votes to override the veto Tuesday and did not discuss doing so. They opted to reconsider their original vote instead.

The 2011-12 budget that commissioners approved last year factored in $239 million in union concessions. Most unions accepted a slew of cutbacks but hit an impasse over the 5-percent giveback.

Earlier this month, commissioners rejected the giveback for the Police Benevolent Association and the Government Supervisors Association of Florida OPEIU Local 100. Were they to do the same for the remaining four unions at impasse, the county would have faced a $65 million budget hole.

They voted to apply the compromise to the four other unions as well.Jordan made her compromise pitch after two hours of public testimony in a commission chambers packed with about 350 people.

County Hall workers, many union members wearing matching gray T-shirts that said “No More!” urged commissioners and the mayor not to cut their benefits — but mostly to save their jobs.

Silvia Nadal, 36, held up a photo of her two children and a sonogram, telling commissioners she is five months pregnant and had received a pink slip.

“I already lost my house ... I got injured on the job,” she said. “What else can I give?”

“We busted our behinds for six months to be told, a month in, ‘Don’t worry about it. In three weeks, you’re out,’ ” said Andrew Poe, a 29-year-old who recently graduated from the corrections academy, his voice breaking. “I don’t think I deserve that. I hope you people will help me keep my job.”

In their debate, commissioners repeated the arguments they had made earlier this month. Those who favored imposing the added healthcare contribution said they knew pain was coming after they signed off last year on a lower property-tax rate. Their opponents on the board argued that the county was balancing its budget unfairly on the backs of workers.

In a memo he sent the mayor late Friday, Chairman Martinez had suggested taking $20 million from the health-insurance trust fund. Though Gimenez appeared to dismiss the idea in his written response to commissioners, saying the fund was already spending too much on health-insurance claims, from the dais he agreed to dip into it for $10 million.

“We can balance the budget without laying anybody off with a 4-percent contribution across the board, all unions,” plus the $10 million, he said.

Martinez, who says he plans to challenge Gimenez in the August mayoral election, congratulated the mayor and Jordan for reaching an agreement but did not support it because, he said, employees are shouldering too high a burden for health care.

John Rivera, the police union president, acknowledged after the vote that not having layoffs is good news for Miami-Dade residents. But he said union lawyers still intend to challenge Gimenez’s veto of the commission’s original decision.

“This is going to wind up in the court system,” he said.

In an interview, Jordan said she began thinking about changing her vote the day after the Jan. 5 commission meeting when she and her colleagues rejected Gimenez’s 5-percent proposal. Jordan said she voted against Gimenez’s plan because she had also opposed the lower property-tax rate, knowing it would cause employees pain.

“I expected that everyone else who voted for the millage rate understood what they were voting for,” she said.

But faced with layoffs, Jordan noted that police officers had received pay increases that other employees had not. And though the increases were intended to give police the same perks as firefighters, Jordan said she called Rivera to tell him she was changing her mind.

“For them to have received 13 percent in less than two years was just unfair, because nobody else got it,” she said.

Meantime, she also spoke with Gimenez, asking him to lower his 5-percent proposal. She said he did not to commit to the 4 percent and $10 million trust-fund move until minutes before Tuesday’s meeting.

Also by a 7-6 vote, commissioners agreed to impose the same 4-percent contribution on the remaining four unions — for solid waste, transit, water and sewer and general employees — at impasse over their contracts. Those workers reminded commissioners during the meeting that they already earn among the lowest salaries in the county.

“The good thing about this is that we can just move forward,” Gimenez told reporters after the meeting. “But there’s no joy in my heart that we had to take another 4 percent from our employees.”

Miami Herald writer Daniel Ducassi contributed to this report.