The Bristol City Council recently decided to review the Board of Education’s new contract with its teachers with an eye to rejecting it. But, after discussions with the board, they agreed the three-year pact was a good one.

In fact, Councilor Kevin Fuller declared it to be a “home run.”

We’d call it more like a sacrifice fly.

We can’t praise a contract that asks employees to make only a 17 percent contribution to health care premiums — and then only in the third year. Yes, we recognize this is a better deal for the city than it has with any other municipal union and we hope to see a fix for that in the next round of negotiations.

As for salaries, the teachers’ wages are frozen in the first year of this new contract. Most teachers will receive only step increases in the second year and 1.75 percent pay hikes in the third year. The total three-year cost of the deal increases wages by 4.98 percent when stipends, steps and other elements are considered. That’s far more than of an increase that most people in the private sector are receiving and probably far more than the city needs to pay, given the number of teachers who are themselves among the ranks of the unemployed.

But that doesn’t mean we’re criticizing either the Board of Education which negotiated the agreement or the city councilors who approved it.

The issue is state law. Negotiators for the city know that, if they reject the proposal on the table, the deal would go to arbitration — and arbitrators would likely give teachers more, since ability to pay isn’t a part of their criteria. That means that neither the board nor the council have any real control over their budgets. Budgets are determined at the bargaining table, not in the council chambers.

Gov. Dannel P. Malloy says that this is the year that we, as a state, will focus on improving education so we’re suggesting that state legislators include in that task a review of binding arbitration.

Certainly we value our teachers and respect the important work they do.

At the same time, we believe arbitrators should consider a municipality’s ability to pay. They should examine how their decisions will affect taxpayers in a down economy.

And they should abandon the idea that every town is the same. That would minimize “the other districts are paying more, so you will” criteria.

It’s time for our elected leaders to step up and face reality.