Updated at 9 a.m. to correct the date of a meeting last week, and add a comment from Lewis Reed's chief of staff, Tom Shepard.

ST. LOUIS • City leaders widely agree they must overhaul the firefighters pension system, and soon.

The system's costs have skyrocketed this past decade, rising from a few million dollars annually to as high as $30 million, according to one City Hall estimate.

But the various sides can't even agree on when to meet to discuss the problem, much less on how to fix it. Now any efforts to address the pension costs are mired in political spite and distrust.

Firefighters think the mayor is inflating pension expenses. Pension board trustees think city leaders want to steal their money. And two of the city's top leaders — Mayor Francis Slay and Aldermanic President Lewis Reed — have not sat down to talk about it.

Two weeks ago, Slay proposed two bills that would, in essence, close the current system and start a new one, with some changes for current firefighters and vastly poorer benefits for new hires.

But the bills are stuck on Reed's desk.

Reed says Slay is not giving him the city's legal opinion, which makes it hard to evaluate the proposal. Slay says Reed is not responding to phone calls and won't meet to talk about the plan.

"What the mayor's going to have to get used to is, he's not a king," said Reed, who is widely expected to run against Slay for mayor in the spring 2013 election. "I don't see how they're trying to work with me. It's getting ridiculous."

Blame Reed, Slay says.

"To lay this on a lack of communication is disingenuous," the mayor said. "He's siding with the firefighters on this particular approach and is going to do everything in his power, it looks like, to keep that from happening, to keep reform from happening."

The two sides have been slinging accusations since the bills were proposed. And reform is indeed frozen, for now. Aldermen privately worry that the fight threatens to foil any hope of change in time for next fiscal year's budget.

The clock is ticking. The city's budget division is already beginning to plan for the new budget. If no reforms are made, the budget director will add a $5 million increase in fire pensions this spring and ask city leaders to cut services or add fees to find enough additional money for the pension fund.

This round started when Slay submitted his bills through an ally on the board. Reed declined to assign them to a committee, where they would be debated, and, if approved, sent back to the full board for a vote. The delay, while rare, was permitted by aldermanic rules that give the president two weeks to assign a bill.

Reed said at the time that Slay's office had given him just two days to review the measures. He wanted to understand the complicated bills before assigning them to committee.

The mayor's office took the move as a sign that Reed would side with firefighters and work to kill the proposal. Slay's chief of staff, Jeff Rainford, leveled accusations that Reed was in the firefighters' pocket. As evidence, Rainford pointed to a $5,000 campaign contribution Reed received from the union.

Reed's chief of staff, Tom Shepard, fired back: City payments to the Thompson Coburn law firm, hired to help write Slay's pension bills, had risen from the $75,000 first proposed to about $200,000, Shepard said. The additional money came after the firm sent a $10,000 donation to Slay's campaign, records show.

Both sides argued vehemently that such contributions had nothing to do with their decisions.

Then, last Wednesday, the two men came face to face at the Board of Estimate and Apportionment. The board, made up of the president, mayor and Comptroller Darlene Green, approves all financial decisions in the city.

On the agenda: Slay's request to take $100,000 from the fund the city uses for fire pensions and use it to pay Thompson Coburn.

Reed asked, among other things, for a copy of Thompson Coburn's legal opinion.

"Oh, you want a copy of the legal opinion?" Slay responded. "You'll have to ask the city counselor about that."

"Well," Reed said, "if it's a legal opinion that we're paying for, I don't see why it'd be a problem that I would have a copy of it."

Slay: "I didn't say there was a problem."

Reed: "Can we ask the city counselor? Can we get word to the city counselor?"

Slay: "We can and we will."

Reed argued that the city had been sued in the past over similar issues, and he was not confident it wouldn't happen again. By the end, with Green sitting quietly, the two were arguing, interrupting and almost yelling:

"Is it required that I have to sit with your staff to get a copy of the legal opinion?" Reed said to Slay.

"I don't even know what you're trying to get at," Slay replied. "I'm not even going to respond to that."

"Don't respond to it," said Reed. "But I'd still like a copy of the legal opinion. And I don't mean a watered-down fact sheet. I'd like to see the actual opinion."

Slay: "I didn't say you couldn't have it. I'll have to defer to legal counsel."

Reed: "I just don't see the difficulty."

Slay: "Here's what I will say. If you had any interest at all ..."

Reed: "No. No."

Slay: "... to try to really deal with this issue ..."

Reed: "You know, you know, I'm not going to let you sit there and say that. If you ..."

Slay: "I won't even say it. I withdraw my comments."

Green then moved for a vote, and the meeting ended. Slay and Reed stood up, just a couple of feet apart, and continued arguing.

Late that week, Slay's office called Reed's to set up a briefing with Thompson Coburn.

The meeting was scheduled for this afternoon. (Tom Shepard said this morning that, because all members weren't available, the meeting was never scheduled.)

But Reed's staff told Slay's staff that the president was too busy to attend.

Later, Reed's staff told the Post-Dispatch that he had already scheduled "call time" in his office for this afternoon.

Reed said he wasn't sure such a briefing, without anything in writing, would be useful anyway.