The local firefighters’ union Friday scrapped a deal with city management that would have cut firefighters' salary increases and maintained jobs.

Sacramento Area Firefighters Local 522 is attributing the failure of the deal to the city’s decision to send layoff notices to firefighters earlier this week. Meanwhile, the city is saying that it was straightforward in its negotiations with the union.

The city, which is facing a deficit of more than $43 million, plans to lay off 68 people in the Sacramento Fire Department if the union does not make concessions.

Both sides said Friday that they are ready to start negotiations again. Local 522 spokesperson Robin Swanson said firefighters are willing to go back to the negotiating table and “figure this out.”

“The city needs to operate in good faith,” she said.

The city is asking for concessions from the union to help balance its budget and avoid fire department layoffs, said Gus Vina, assistant city manager. “This issue is too important for us to give up on."

Under the terms of the deal that was voted down, firefighters would have skipped their 5 percent cost-of-living increase scheduled for July. The agreement guaranteed firefighters a 1 percent pay increase in July 2010, to be followed by a 2 percent raise in 2011. Two-thirds of union members voted down the agreement Friday, Swanson said, and the deal failed with 66 percent opposed and 34 percent in support.

The union expressed anger that the city sent pink slips to firefighters after the groups forged a preliminary deal.

The union sent out a press release to media outlets Friday morning saying that more than 70 firefighters received layoff letters on Tuesday, after the union had already made the early agreement with the city and before union members started voting on it.

The city’s move "is creating all kinds of mistrust among firefighters who thought they had a deal with the city,” Swanson said before the results of the vote were announced.

The city’s decision to send the layoff notices was either meant to intimidate the firefighters or the result of “gross incompetence,” Swanson said.

But Vina said the city was clear in its negotiations with the union. The union knew layoff letters were coming, he said.

From the beginning of negotiations, “Local 522 [and] city staff knew that we were looking at a reduction of 50 firefighter positions, as part of the necessary reductions for next year if we don’t get the labor concessions,” Vina said. “They knew the letters for the layoffs were going to go out on June 1.”

City spokesperson Wendy Klock-Johnson provided numbers that differed from Swanson’s. On Monday, the city sent 68 layoff notices to firefighters and 100 layoff notices to other city staffers, according to Klock-Johnson.

Vina explained that the 68 layoffs figure includes 50 firefighters, nine engineers and nine captains. The engineers and captains have the ability to move down to firefighter positions, which would displace people in those positions.