(Updated Wednesday morning with comment from firefighters’ union; Tuesday afternoon with new information from CalPERS.)

Bakersfield will pay about $7.5 million a year for the next 30 years just to make up for its losses in the pension funds last year, according to projections from the state and city.

The city will actually catch a break the next two years, having to pay only $1.5 million in 2011-12 and $4.5 million the year after, before the full $7.5 million goes into effect.

That’s on top of the city’s regular contributions. The city paid $26 million in 2008-09 for its contributions.

CalPERS, the state fund that administers pensions for many governments, including Bakersfield, decided to call last year’s market collapse “an extraordinary one-time event” and amortize it out over 30 years, rather than blending it into the regular rate adjustment.

And that $7.5 million figure will be static until the city pays it off in 2041, said Edd Fong, spokesman for CalPERS. The fund will not rely on investment returns to pay off the losses, but neither will good investment returns help pay off the losses.

However, the city’s main contributions will still adjust year-to-year based on market performance.

In the late ’90s, the fund was so flush that Bakersfield didn’t make contributions at all (except for the employees’ share, which the city picks up). Bakersfield, like most, didn’t save the money. However, changes to CalPERS’ methodology — smoothing rate changes over 15 years rather than five — mean that’s less likely to happen in the future, Fong said.

The city was already facing down a liability caused by its increase in pension benefits in 2001. The so-called 3-at-50 — 3 percent of your salary per year of work, beginning at age 50 — for police and firefighters meant the city suddenly owed its employees more than it had saved for. The city was slowly paying down that unfunded liability when the market crash made it much, much worse.

Bakersfield City Councilman Zack Scrivner — who wasn’t on the council when the enhanced pensions were approved, and who has been pushing to change the system for new hires — said the market crash proves his point.

“This situation illustrates the folly of defined benefit plans, particularly when you are providing benefits that are this generous,” he said.

Robert Melton, president of the city firefighters’ union, said the problem was not the benefits, but that the city didn’t sock away money to pay for its promises. PERS promoted 3-at-50, and when the firefighters asked for it, the city agreed “because we gave up wages for those benefits,” Melton said. “They’re pointing all the fingers back at us and trying to make us bad guys.”

Scrivner agreed halfway. “Absolutely, there should have been money set aside, but the first thing the council would have done is never approve the higher benefit,” he said.

In the short term, though, the city has to be ready to come up with $1.5 million.

“You might have to look at more drastic options that the city has been able to avoid. That’s furlough days, salary reductions and layoffs,” Scrivner said.