A day after releasing a budget that calls for shared sacrifice, Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa launched a campaign to rally support for a menu of employee concessions that are already proving unappetizing to city unions.

While some unions are willing to consider salary cuts, the mayor's toughest opposition may come from the police union, which said Tuesday it would fight any reductions in salaries or benefits.

The mayor's plan calls for closing a $530 million budget deficit while sparing 2,800 city jobs.

"I don't want to lay off people, but I will," Villaraigosa said in an interview with the Daily News editorial board.

"I don't want to furlough, but I will - unless we work this out together."

He's asking for the public and unions to participate in the decision-making process with an interactive Web site, keepLAworking.com, that allows Web users to "solve" the budget crisis and save jobs by selecting cuts and reforms from a menu. For example, choose two furlough days per year for city employees, and users learn that it would save 273 jobs.

"Now we've got a shared problem where everybody's got to figure it out," he said. "We all gotta be grown-ups."

Anticipating resistance from the unions, he has scheduled town hall meetings in the west San Fernando Valley and South Los Angeles in coming weeks, and meetings with city employees.

On one of his stops on the local newspaper editorial board circuit, he told the Daily News on Tuesday that options such as deferred raises, retirement increases, furloughs and health-care reform would prove more appealing to city workers than the alternative, layoffs. While many of the city's most powerful unions have expressed openness to the mayor's proposals, the Los Angeles Police Protective League is preparing to fight any loss in salary or benefits.

Officials with the union said Tuesday they would rather see the city slow the hiring of new police officers than give up any pay or benefits.

"The Police Protective League and its members are not thinking about a single giveaway," said a PPL official, who asked not to be named because contract negotiations are ongoing. "The union is not going to be negotiating pay reductions."

Villaraigosa has said layoffs are not an option for police or firefighters and he intends to stick to his pledge to hire more officers, with about 100 left to meet his goal. But he said the department will have to make other sacrifices.

Villaraigosa's proposal also includes slashing his own $223,000 salary by 12 percent - a percentage he said he chose because it was higher than the pay cuts other city employees would likely face.

He said he expects his shared-sacrifice plan to apply to everyone -- including police officers and firefighters. But the mayor on Tuesday acknowledged the concessions they would have to make would not include layoffs or furloughs to avoid causing any lapses in public safety.

The firefighters' union was also troubled by the magnitude of the cuts included in the mayor's proposed budget.

"I'm deeply concerned about a budget proposal that would take $40 million out of the Fire Department's budget because there's no way to do that than to impact the number of first responders we have on the street," said Pat McOsker, president of the United Firefighters of Los Angeles City. "Lives could (and) would be lost that way."

The firefighters' union started negotiations with the city April 13. While McOsker said he was concerned some measures could impact firefighters' ability to respond to emergencies, he said the union has no illusions about the fiscal crisis.

"We're going to be very reasonable for negotiations," McOsker said. "We understand how difficult these times are. We understand people are losing jobs and homes. ... We want to be part of a solution and not part of the problem."

Barbara Maynard, a spokeswoman for the Coalition of Los Angeles City Unions, echoed the sentiment. "Our conversations (with the city) are productive and we want to be a part of the solution," she said Tuesday.

The organization on Tuesday pitched an early retirement program, saying getting workers to retire early instead of laying them off would be better for the economy. "While we believe that an early retirement program is the biggest thing the city can do, both for the budget and the economy, we will not stop there," coalition officials said in a written statement.

Maynard said the coalition, which represents six unions and 22,000 city employees, has had a better and more trusting relationship with the current city administration. "Historically, management will say, 'We have a budget problem,' and labor says, 'We don't believe you,"' Maynard said.

"Thank goodness (the trust) does exist going into this economic crisis, because otherwise, it would have been a street war."