NEW CITY - Clarkstown and its police union have reached what both sides are calling a "below market deal" that trims costs for one of the state's highest-paid town police departments.

The Town Board on Friday unanimously approved a five-year agreement with the Police Benevolent Association that calls for a 1.7 percent raise for the first year, and 1.8 percent raises for years two through five.

That's a drop from the union's expiring five-year contract, which carried annual 2.5 percent raises.

The salary deal is below the average police raises in the region, which carry annual raises in the 2.5 percent range, according to the town. It's also lower than the Consumer Price Index increase of about 2.2 percent.

CLARKSTOWN POLICE STUDY: Cut overtime, reduce number of supervisors to save $5.4M

CLARKSTOWN: 7 Takeaways about the new police chief

CLARKSTOWN: Police sergeant's making arrests - and history

The starting salary for police officers — which town Supervisor George Hoehmann said was the highest in Rockland County — will be trimmed from $78,764 to $60,000.

Also slimmed down will be the amount of compensatory time officers will be allowed to accumulate, from 480 hours to 240. This takes over $5 million off the books, Hoehmann said.

"Over the past two years our Police Department has faced several challenges," Hoehmann said. "This new contract is a fresh start and a show of support and confidence in our hardworking police force."

The PBA's incoming president, Pete Walker, called the agreement "a fair and equitable agreement that provides a below-market salary increase and concessions that will enable the town to better control spending.

"What this contract does for our members is gives us the stability of knowing where we stand for the next five years," Walker said. "For us, maybe we could have tried to bargain harder for a bigger percentage raise but there was no need to do that."

Walker said the 143-member union ratified the pact Wednesday.

Hoehmann noted he and the Town Board had cut their own salaries by 2 percent in the 2018 budget.

He said there's continuing cooperation between the town and the PBA to look for other cost-cutting measures as cited in a consultant's report.

The town's force consists of 156 full-time officers and 23 full-time civilian employees. Its $47 million budget for 2017 represents about a third of the town's total spending plan.

Clarkstown cops patrol a community of about 47 square miles with a population of about 85,800.

Rockland police salaries

Here's where Rockland's town police departments rank in terms of average pay across New York state, according to 2017 figures from the Empire Center for New York State Policy: