NEW ORLEANS (AP) — A federal judge has approved a sweeping agreement between the Justice Department and the city of New Orleans designed to clean up the city's long-troubled police department, but Mayor Mitch Landrieu, who once strongly backed it, said the city wants to put the brakes on it because of costs.

Landrieu said he asked U.S. District Judge Susie Morgan to delay final approval, largely because the Justice Department has also entered into a potentially expensive separate agreement with the New Orleans sheriff for reforms at the city-funded jail.

Morgan, however, approved the agreement, calling it "fair, adequate and reasonable" in a Friday ruling.

"The Orleans Parish Prison consent decree may cost $17 million, which is not budgeted for this year and would therefore bankrupt the City," Landrieu said in a news release. "If a federal judge ordered the City to pay $17 million, we would need to furlough every City employee, including police officers, for 28 days. It makes no sense to furlough or lay off police officers to give pay raises to prison guards."

"We just can't afford it," said City Council member Cynthia Hedge-Morrell, a member of the council budget committee.

The mayor said earlier that he was unsure of the city's next legal step. He noted that the city already has implemented many elements of the consent decree, including changes in the homicide bureau, the K-9 unit, sex crime investigations, use-of-force investigations and policies governing the way officers are hired and paid for private, off-duty security details.

The separate jail agreement calls for Sheriff Marlin Gusman to provide adequate medical and mental health care and overhaul policies on use of force and rape prevention, among other reforms.

The agreement approved Friday would require the police department to overhaul its policies and procedures for use of force, training, interrogations, searches and arrests, recruitment and supervision.

Landrieu has estimated the city will pay roughly $11 million annually for the next four or five years to implement the reforms.

The Justice Department in a statement Friday night hailed the agreement as a "critical milestone" in reforming the police department. It did not directly address Landrieu's complaints but noted that the mayor himself had sought a comprehensive civil rights investigation of the department when he took office in 2010.

The agreement resolves the Justice Department's allegations that New Orleans police officers engaged in a pattern of discriminatory and unconstitutional activity. Attorney General Eric Holder has said the agreement is the most wide-ranging in the Justice Department's history.

The judge heard testimony about the consent decree at a "fairness hearing" in September. At the time, then-U.S. Attorney Jim Letten called it a blueprint for the "rebirth of the entire city of New Orleans."

Some critics had urged the judge to order some changes to the agreement. Susan Hutson, the city's independent police monitor, said the consent decree should give her office a larger role in the reform process. Continued...