The new contract covering the Butler Police Department’s 22 officers, including the chief, acknowledges the city’s financial plight.

Looking ahead to the new year, it’s important that new contracts covering firefighters and nonuniformed employees do the same.

The new police contract acknowledges that, without understanding and lesser contract demands by employees, the city will be flirting with bankruptcy or equally unwanted state fiscally distressed status.

Under both scenarios, employees could face much more precarious times than what contracts more in line with the city’s ability to pay portend.

The city doesn’t have much, if any, window for eliminating jobs, but it might have no choice if its fiscal picture continues to deteriorate.

That is the reality that must be faced by Local 114, International Association of Firefighters, and the bargaining unit of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees representing the nonuniformed workers.

The city’s fiscal survival is at stake, probably more than at any other time in its history.

Workers covered by all three unions have worked under terms of contracts that expired Dec. 31, 2011. The new police pact sets a good precedent for the other two unions to follow if they too fear the impact of hardheaded demands that ignore the financial realities dogging the city.

The weeks ahead will make clear their stances and how the city might have to react to them.

In terms of the fire department, the option of a part-paid, part-volunteer fire-protection operation remains a possibility if the city can’t afford to leave the current all-paid department intact.

The nonunion bargaining unit has a much smaller window for scaling back employees, but the city will have to do what its money status dictates, serious negative consequences or not.

To police officers’ credit, they chose an option they would have preferred to avoid, but that option should keep the department at its current worker complement.

To accomplish that, police officers accepted lower raises than those included in their previous contract and agreed to significant increases in health care contributions and higher medical deductibles — all of which will save the city a considerable amount of money over the three-year term of the pact, which is retroactive to Jan. 1, 2012.

The message from the arbitration panel that produced the new contract was, “Simply put, the city needs financial relief not only from this bargaining unit (Lodge 32, Fraternal Order of Police) but citywide.”

State fiscally distressed status, while not actively on the city council table at this time, has been discussed in the past.

It’s in the city’s best interests to avoid a distressed designation because of the severe cuts in services that could ensue and the tax increases that might be imposed under it. Additionally, distressed status and/or bankruptcy would thrust the city into an unwanted position in terms of public perception, both locally and in the eyes of people who might be considering moving here or opening or expanding a business here.

The time has come for the firefighters’ and nonuniformed workers’ unions to follow the police department’s lead and finally bring their contract stalemates to an end — in the process acknowledging city residents’ tax burden and the union members’ long-term best interests.

Perhaps the new police contract will provide the needed incentive for the firefighters and nonuniformed employees to make the necessary but unpalatable choices that the police commendably decided were needed.