Tracy’s day of reckoning arrived this week when managers gave city employees about 58 layoff notices, as administrators try to chop spending by $9 million to close a built-in budget deficit.

Though details are still being worked out as the city’s top administrators sit down with government union heads and leaders of other labor groups, pain is likely to be spread across the board.

A report due out Thursday, recommending the layoffs the City Council will vote on at its meeting Tuesday, will spell out exactly where the layoffs will come from.

One knowledgeable source, who asked not to be identified because the person is not authorized to speak, said cuts will likely include several police officers.

In the police department, a top administrator might be let go, another could get demoted, four officers could be out of a job, and the gang unit could be disbanded, with those officers reassigned as patrolmen, the source said.

In the fire department, the city’s finance director said, a vacant firefighter job or two might be cut, but no firefighters will be laid off. It remains to be seen whether any top managers there will be demoted.

Another employee unauthorized to speak on the matter said nearly two dozen members of the Teamsters union, which mostly represents public works employees, could be laid off.

Some of the numbers for proposed layoffs could change later, depending upon, for instance, whether any long-time employees retire unexpectedly.

And Zane Johnston said administrators will still talk with union heads to discuss the impacts of the proposals and perhaps tinker with suggested cuts.

“In the end, you have to identify the size of the organization that can be sustained,” Johnston said. “We know that city revenues will never be what they were before.”

Both sales taxes and property taxes that the city relies on to pay its workers have taken huge hits in the past two years, when Tracy’s income has shrunk about 25 percent from about $55 million to roughly $43 million projected for the fiscal year that ends June 30.

The suggested layoffs left city employees on edge for the past few weeks, with many waiting to see if they’ll have a job.

The layoffs will be based on seniority, with those hires last shown the door first. Some employees will likely be bumped from one department to another just so they can keep a job with the city.

The proposed job cuts alone are unlikely to save the city $9 million, and city officials have already begun steps to ask voters to OK a new tax to pay for public safety.

But Johnston said layoffs are “a big, big step, a big chunk of the overall position of where we need to be in the future.”

• Contact Tracy Press City Editor Eric Firpo at 830-4223 or efirpo@tracypress.com.