HARRISBURG, Pa. (AP) – Pennsylvania’s auditor general says new data shows that municipal pension debt significantly increased.
Auditor General Eugene DePasquale said Wednesday that local governments with the weakest pension plans were underfunding them by $7.7 billion. That’s an increase of $1 billion over two years of new data through 2012.
Nearly 70 percent of that debt, or $5.3 billion, belonged to Philadelphia. Pittsburgh was second with $485 million. Among Pennsylvania’s cities, Scranton had the worst funding ratio at 23 percent.
DePasquale warns that, unless changes are made, rising pension debt for troubled local governments could mean benefit reductions for retirees. Approximately 1,200 local governments run about 2,600 pension funds.
Slightly more than half of those local governments funded their pension plans at 90 percent or higher, and weren’t counted as underfunded.
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