As strange as it may seem, the alarming size of the $25 billion unfunded liability for the Public Employees Retirement System hasn't been alarming enough. Despite more and more tax dollars going to feed the shortfall rather than schools, health care and other public services, leaders have shown little interest in tackling the PERS puzzle.
It could be that the sheer size of the $25 billion liability - the gap between how much public employers will collectively owe retirees and how much the pension fund will have to pay them - is so large it seems unreal. Or perhaps, it's that no single entity is responsible for it. With more than 900 cities, state agencies, school districts and other public employers participating in PERS, there's a shared - and dispersed - sense of responsibility that makes it all too easy to ignore the big picture.