Mayor Mamdani’s balanced budget miracle is built on a pension gimmick – Reason Foundation

"Other cities have paid the cost for extending their pension amortization in the way Mamdani is doing. This was one of the first things Chicago tinkered with during its budget shortfalls. After years of underfunding its public pensions, Chicago repeatedly pushed out its pension repayment timeline. For its police and firefighter pension funds, for example, the target date for reaching 90 percent funding has been extended to 2060.  This strategy doesn’t reduce costs, it delays them in the short term and increases them in the long term, saddling future generations with the debt while politicians spend today."