SAN FRANCISCO — The University of California’s governing board took steps Thursday to limit the pensions of top-earning executives who had threatened to sue the college system over what they claimed was a promise to increase their retirement packages.

UC’s Board of Regents voted to rescind a policy, adopted in 1999, that would have based the system’s share of pension contributions on the executives’ full salaries instead of a $245,000 cap allowed under federal tax rules.

UC President Mark Yudof said the university received IRS permission to apply the new formula in 2007 but never implemented it because the go-ahead came as its campuses already were grappling with budget cuts and the need to increase spending on pensions for all employees.

Under the canceled program, financing bigger pensions for about 200 vice chancellors and deans who make more than $245,000 would have cost the university $61 million, according to the San Francisco Chronicle.

Thirty-six senior UC managers notified Yudof in December 2010 that they expected the university system to honor its 1999 commitment. But Yudof argued at the time that the system was not obligated to implement the proposed formula because doing so required final approval from him, the board’s chairman and the chair of the regents’ finance committee.

UC spokesman Steve Montiel said Yudof asked the board to withdraw the policy “to close the loop and make sure everyone is clear that as far as the regents are concerned, no benefits have accrued and no benefits will accrue in the future.”

The Chronicle reported that three protesters were arrested at the regents’ meeting Thursday when the chairwoman tried to end the public comment period. Several students had criticized Yudof’s efforts to prevent further tuition increases and the regents for meeting during students’ spring break.

The board left the meeting room when the protesters refused to stop speaking, and when riot police came in to clear them, many in the crowd stripped down to spring break gear of bathing suits and flower leis, the newspaper reported.

The three people arrested, all UCLA students, were booked on suspicion of obstructing an officer and failure to disperse.

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