In Reforming Public Pensions, we look at the current state of Washington’s public pension system and the methods of calculating unfunded liabilities in these plans.  The good news is that Washington is in much better shape than most other states.  The bad news is that all states are probably understating their unfunded liabilities by assuming a too-high discount rate.

Additionally, one of the big ticket policy reductions in the House and Senate budgets for 2011-13 is the elimination of certain COLAs for members of PERS 1 and TRS 1.  These are the only two public pension plans in Washington that have any unfunded liability by current valuation rules, and eliminating these COLAs would yield significant savings.