With more retirees, EUTF becomes a ticking time bomb

By Colbert Matsumoto

POSTED: 01:30 a.m. HST, Feb 19, 2013

~~The recent story on the $8.4 billion unfunded liability of the Employees Retirement System highlights a most critical problem facing our community. But an even bigger fiscal challenge we face is with the Employer-Union Trust Fund (EUTF) and its role in administering retirement health benefits for public employees. The most recent actuarial study reported the unfunded liability of the EUTF as of July 1, 2011, at $18.2 billion.
That liability increased by 75 percent, or $8 billion, from just four years earlier when it was $10.3 billion. To put this in perspective, the total annual state of Hawaii general fund budget is $5.5 billion. No other cost center funded by the state and the counties grows at the rate the EUTF's deferred liability rises. It is unsustainable and will continue to worsen as the number of retirees and the cost of post-employment health care benefits continues to escalate.
~~

The recent story on the $8.4 billion unfunded liability of the Employees Retirement System highlights a most critical problem facing our community. But an even bigger fiscal challenge we face is with the Employer-Union Trust Fund (EUTF) and its role in administering retirement health benefits for public employees. The most recent actuarial study reported the unfunded liability of the EUTF as of July 1, 2011, at $18.2 billion.

That liability increased by 75 percent, or $8 billion, from just four years earlier when it was $10.3 billion. To put this in perspective, the total annual state of Hawaii general fund budget is $5.5 billion. No other cost center funded by the state and the counties grows at the rate the EUTF's deferred liability rises. It is unsustainable and will continue to worsen as the number of retirees and the cost of post-employment health care benefits continues to escalate. Login for more...