Years ago cities and states made deals of lucrative pensions and healthcare in lieu of big raises, essentially kicking the can down the road. Now they are running out of road.
Getting gold plated government pensions wasn't good enough for many, as they learned to totally pad and maximize those fat retirement packages by alleging injuries, alleged medical issues and doing lots of overtime in their final 12 months and other schemes to maximize those packages. Lots of fraud and corruption. It's become routine in some venues.