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TUCSON - It's no secret the City of Tucson is in debt. On Wednesday, the City Council got a detailed look at how deeply in debt Tucson is.

Numbers show that if voters don't agree to pay a higher city sales tax, Tucson's red ink is projected to be $51 million dollars by 2012.

And city officials say, even if the so-called core tax passes, it's expected the city will still have a deficit of $11 million.

On Wednesday, a citizens committee told city council where it recommends cuts.

Jaime Gutierrez, co-chair of the Core Tax Committee, told council members, "I have to tell you there are no magic bullets contained here."

Both he and Liz Miller, the committee's other cochair, say even without deeper cuts, the city's situation already is grim.

Miller pointed out, "The city has lost over $70 million in revenue in the past 2 years. The city is operating with the same number of employees as it had in 1989."

For months the committee studied what the city should and shouldn't do. Miller says, "Police and fire were the last two items that we thought should be cut."

The committee said Tucson could save $11 million partly by cutting overtime, assigning more employees to collect sales tax revenues and getting out of the television business.

Council members committed to immediately work toward the $11 million target, insisting the public wants to see it.

Mayor Bob Walkup said the public wants to know, "that we really get that we need to focus hard on making government smaller, making it more efficient."

But Councilman Steve Kozachik thinks people want more. He says, "I don't think that they're going to vote for a half cent sales tax if we haven't done more significant cuts than look at the $11 million."

Officially, no cuts were made today. There'll be more discussions next month.