State public pension plans are the future, and often current, greatest liabilities that state governments must tackle. Promises made to employees in the past, and politicians kicking the problem further into the future have made the problem spiral out of control. Economists agree that the current discounting of liabilities leaves much to be desired. State...

What if most of the public employee compensation enhancements of the past decade or more in California were based on inaccurately optimistic government financial statements? Or to be blunt, what if government decision makers thought they could afford these compensation enhancements, because the information they relied on used accounting gimmicks that would land a person...

Last week the California Public Policy Center published a study assessing the impact of new regulations issued by the Government Accounting Standards Board. The new ruling will require public entities to recognize unfunded pension liabilities on their balance sheets. This is a major reform. But it points to a larger issue. California’s state and local...