Members of St. John's city council are planning to take a hard look at the city's pension plans as they look for ways to save money.

"This pension issue is a very, very large issue for us," said Danny Breen, a city councillor and chair of the city's finance committee.

Breen said the city's pension plans now have an unfunded liability of about $100-million. Breen told CBC that he will be reviewing pensions in the new year.

"We're going to be consulting with the staff and their unions in that review," said Breen. "And we're going to start with the mayor and councillors' pension plan, and that's going to be the first one we're going to review, and we're going to have a report on that completed by June of 2013."

Breen added that the city has already been making special payments to shore up its pension plans, and those payments could increase to $10-million by 2014.