City officials said that the award provides approximately $2.8 million in savings through fiscal 2014, and the city would see an estimated $835,000 in savings in the current fiscal year. Officials also said that the city would save approximately $1 million in salary payments based on the county average, and the award reduces termination pay by 16.6 percent, saving the city approximately $850,000 on current employees. The award also eliminates health care co-pay reimbursements, generating a cost savings of approximately $26,000 a year.

“We are pleased that the decision provides upwards of $2.8 million in cost savings going forward, particularly by dramatically reducing retirement payouts,” Mandel said, “but it simply does not go far enough.”

Councilman John McLaughlin, the lone Republican holdover from the previous administration, said he was unhappy with the decision, and that other unions would now expect pay increases as well. He said he expects the decision to cost the city roughly $4 million, which it will likely be forced to cover by borrowing.

“I don’t seen any substantial savings to the taxpayers, and if there’s a savings of $835,000, then the tax increase was unnecessary,” McLaughlin said. “The police deserve to make a fair living, but at some point the trough gets empty, and you’re cannibalizing the hand that feeds you. It just becomes unsustainable. The [Civil Service Employees Association] gave a lot of concessions — where do you come off saying that you can finance a seven-year contract but you can’t bring back the people you laid off? That’s unfair to the CSEA.”

McLaughlin said that giving the arbitrator permission to award a seven-year contract was a reward for the PBA’s support for the Democrats. “… [Y]ou gave the arbitrator the job of doing the negotiating that our corporation counsel and city manager should be doing,” he said. “By giving them seven years, they also made the contract binding.”

Apple said that an agreement the council rejected in 2010 would have saved the city considerably more money. “There were more concessions from the PBA,” he said.