Doral will cut its contribution to employee retirement funds from 12 to 6 percent per year, City Council members decided Wednesday.

However, city workers will now have the option to immediately take home the 6 percent they were contributing toward retirement out of their own pockets — or continue socking away the money toward retirement.

The changes affect all city employees except police officers, City Council members, the city manager and other top administrators.

Council members will continue to get 18 percent toward their retirement from the city, and they contribute 6 percent from their salaries. Top managers will continue to get 12 percent from the city, and they also put in 6 percent.

Unlike their colleagues in most local cities, Doral’s 161 non-uniformed workers are not unionized and don’t have a pension plan. Instead, the city gives them a defined-benefit retirement plan similar to a private-sector 401(k). The city’s cops are unionized and get pensions.

Carollo said the change is expected to save the city about $28,000 a month.

The council also approved a yearly raise system for employees based on performance reviews to replace yearly bonuses. Now city workers will receive up to a 3 percent raise each year, but the raise won’t exceed the Consumer Price Index for All Urban Consumers rate for the previous Dec. 1. Citywide, the yearly bonuses averaged about 2 percent.

City Manager Joe Carollo said the city’s younger workers will appreciate being able to keep 6 percent of their wages instead of being required to save it.

“You’re talking about employees that are making in the low 30s and 40s,” Carollo said. “That’s a big sacrifice that 6 percent.”

The retirement cuts were part of a 28 percent reduction to the current fiscal year’s budget as proposed by Carollo and Mayor Luigi Boria, which also received council approval Wednesday on first reading. They want to slash $16.8 million from the city’s $58 million general-fund budget, which would bring the city’s reserves — its savings — up to about $40.6 million.

Coming in the middle of the fiscal year and just before the council will begin to prepare next year’s budget, the cuts include nixing a new, $7-million police station in favor of placing the department in a two-building compound shared with public works and lowering the amount set aside for the first phase of a new park on Northwest 114th Avenue from $7 million to $5 million.

On the personnel side, Carollo wants to cut $1.7 million in costs by reducing overtime and leaving a few city positions vacant through the fiscal year. The proposal also has less money for city promotional activities and travel to various conferences for city employees.

Carollo and Boria have said they want to pump up reserves for other big-ticket items, including improvements to roads and storm water drainage, as well as a cultural arts center.

The vote was unanimous and all council members agreed that city should trim some fat, but the discussion was not without some of the heated exchanges that are now common on the dais.

Before the council started asking questions of department heads who were in attendance, Councilwoman Christi Fraga said she wanted more time to review the details before the first vote.

“I’m all for this, but I think it needs to be done in a better procedure by having workshops,” she said.

Carollo shot back, saying the full amendment had been delivered to council members’ homes on May 24, and he had since offered to arrange meetings with department directors to go over details.

“Three of you took me up on the offer,” he said, referring to Boria, Bettina Rodriguez-Aguilera and Ana Maria Rodriguez. “Two of you did not,” referring to Fraga and Sandra Ruiz.

After the back-and-forth died down, Boria decried the bickering.

“We have to stop working like enemies,” he said.

The council agreed to hold a budget workshop, which is tentatively scheduled for June 26.

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