A scary pension forecast didn't move Pittsburgh City Council members any closer to consensus Thursday on how to prop up the pension fund before a Dec. 31 deadline for state takeover.

Under a takeover, the city would pay about $3.6 billion over the next 30 years to get the pension plan 100 percent funded, according to a report by Pennsylvania Municipal Retirement System.

The sharply higher obligations would begin with an $86.3 million payment in 2013 and peak with a $160 million in 2032. The obligation would drop to $121.6 million in 2039.

Average payments of $120 million would consume a huge chunk of the city's budget, now $450 million, Mayor Luke Ravenstahl said in a statement.

"I said all along that the numbers would not be pretty, but they are even worse than I expected," he said.

The city is paying about $56 million into the pension fund this year.

City officials have said the fund now is 27.5 percent funded. It must be 50 percent funded by Dec. 31 to avoid a takeover. According to PMRS calculations, pension fund liabilities on Jan. 1 will top $691 million.

Councilman Ricky Burgess said takeover payments are a "time bomb" that would push the city to the brink of insolvency. If the city defaults on payments, he said, it could be forced to sell off assets.

"We're talking about the life and death of the city," he said.

In light of the PMRS report, Mr. Burgess said, he's more convinced than ever of the need to parlay parking lease assets into a pension fund bailout, averting a takeover.

Last month, council rejected Mr. Ravenstahl's proposed 50-year lease of parking assets to private investors. He wanted to use at least $220 million of lease revenue to avert a pension fund takeover, but council balked because of concerns about private management and the parking rate increases he proposed as part of a deal.

Mr. Burgess and council members R. Daniel Lavelle and Theresa Kail-Smith on Thursday introduced a bill to revive the parking lease.

PMRS provided the takeover numbers to city officials Wednesday night. Jim Allen, PMRS secretary, and Kenneth Kent, the agency's consulting actuary, explained the calculations during a council meeting Thursday.

PMRS confirmed that an infusion of $220 million would keep annual payments in the next 30 years from climbing above the $70 million mark. It said that if the city put as much as $330 million of parking lease revenue into the fund -- and added in additional parking taxes authorized by the Legislature -- annual payments would crest at $69 million in 2014 and hover in the $30 million range some years on a course to the 100 percent funding level.

But other council members refused to be swayed.

"We have rejected the lease plan outright. There are other options on the table," said Councilwoman Natalia Rudiak, a proponent of a plan to lease the city's share of parking assets to the pension fund for $220 million and use that money to avert a takeover.

The parking authority declined to study the plan, and Mr. Ravenstahl opposes it.

Councilman Bill Peduto, who believes the state would be a more capable caretaker of the pension fund, said there are still other options for generating a cash infusion.

He said the list includes tapping $45 million in restricted reserves, securing contributions from nonprofit groups and raising parking rates to help the pension fund. The parking rate increases would be more moderate than those Mr. Ravenstahl proposed in the parking lease plan.

During presentations he made to promote his parking lease plan, Mr. Ravenstahl predicted that the city's payments under a takeover would climb to $76 million in 2011 and $83 million by 2030. The more severe figures from PMRS caught him off guard.

"Hopefully, today, the financial reality of these impossible payments becomes crystal clear for members of city council," he said.