pilot program may pave the way for autonomous vehicles.

First off tonight, a push by critics of Mayor Brandon Johnson to put the city's top financial officials on the hot seat.

>> Fizzled today at City Hall as turmoil continues to swirl around the city's finances, acting chief financial officer Stephen Mayor defended the decision to delay part of an extra payment to the city's pension funds.

>> So for 2026, the city, as Mike noted, is dividing the advance pension payment into 2 equal installments.

In an effort to be responsible stewards of the city's cash flow.

The 1st half was paid on January 16th.

And the 2nd half is currently planned to be paid mid year.

>> Or Heather?

Sharon joins us now to break down the latest on the city's budget.

Heather, why did critics of the mayor?

Why did they demand today's hearing before the city's finance committee?

Well, during the city's long just concluded budget season, one of the major sticking points was how much the city was going to pay.

>> Into its pension funds that it's not required to think about it as if you've got a lot of credit card debt and you're trying to pay down that debt by paying more than the minimum payment.

The city's minimum payment on its pensions is nearly 2.8 billion dollars.

And this is designed to send an extra 260 million dollars to that pension fund to prevent the situation from getting even worse.

So why did the city only made half of the required extra payment to the city's for pension funds?

Well, essentially the city didn't have the cash.

The older people hurt today in part because Cook County has been incredibly slow in getting the city and other taxing districts, school districts and libraries, the property tax revenue that they rely on to pay those bills.

And, you know, sometimes you've got a lot bills do on the 15th of the month.

The city has a lot of bills due in January and that created the crash crunch.

This was not budget director and that Guzman and acting fire Chief Financial Officer Steve Marsh said at an effort to thwart the will of the city council has some critics of the mayor had suggested.

So the mayor said last month the city might have to make emergency cuts, including layoffs, if revenue that is big into the city's 2026.

Spending plans fails to materialize.

Do we know whether that's going to be necessary?

We don't know about that city's larger financial picture.

There are still lots of questions about the debt sale ordered by the budget and the gambling in city.

Taverns.

That is also counting on.

So there are still a lot of unknowns, but at least perhaps some answers about the city's pension crisis had Thank you