By Corianna Baker, includes “… All the cities on this list, including Kansas City and St. Louis, have balanced budget requirements, meant to ‘prevent elected officials from shifting the burden of paying for current-year services to future-year taxpayers. … Unfortunately, in the world of government accounting, things are often not as they appear.’ Cities can do things such as keeping pension and other employment compensation costs out of the budget to give the illusion of a balanced budget. …”