It’s common wisdom that people receiving bad news shouldn’t shoot the messenger, but rather work to solve the problem.

Having authored a new report on the financial health of Maryland’s pension funds for state and local government employees — a report that raises serious questions about the funds’ ability to keep their promises to workers — I’m surprised by the many attacks that state officials are now firing my way. They’d serve Marylanders better by trying to solve the problem, because the pension shortfall threatens government workers’ retirements, taxpayers’ standard of living and state and local governments’ ability to carry out their future duties.

To prepare the report, I accumulated hundreds of financial reports for the state and its counties, reaching back over many years. My study uses those data to present an accurate historical picture of nearly every major public pension and benefit fund in Maryland. I was particularly interested in how assumptions about rates of return and health care cost trends varied across the funds. Given past performance and current expectations, can we be confident that the funds are adequately accumulating money to cover future expenses?

My study documents how estimates of the state’s pension system long-term shortfall have increased from $10 billion in 2008 to over $19 billion today, while the retiree health care system has a $9.4 billion long-term shortfall. With a few exceptions, the situation in many Maryland counties is just as dismal.

Of course, such work is open to thoughtful criticism. Like all analysts, I made decisions about where to focus my attention, paying particular attention to actuarial assumptions and investment strategies. However, instead of contributing to the public discussion of this important issue, state officials are apoplectic that I’ve dared to raise concerns about the funds’ health.

The first to criticize my report was Dean Kenderdine, the director of the state’s retirement agency, who dismissed the report by saying that the state has already made changes to its pension system. It appears Kenderdine did not read my study, as I explicitly mention the 2011 benefit reforms and recent changes in actuarial assumption.

Another critic is Michael Golden, a spokesperson for the state pension system. He accuses me of “cherry picking statistics” and “pulling numbers out of the air,” even though my report offers clear citations and the data come directly from public financial reports. As for “cherry picking,” my study notes that pension officials often use a single year’s data to justify their policies, and the very purpose of my study is to examine the pension funds’ lengthy financial history and long-term prospects.

State officials’ most substantive response to my study goes like this: Thanks to the 2011 benefit reforms cited by Kenderdine and a recent decision to finally phase out the irresponsible corridor funding method, the state’s systems will supposedly reach a funding level of 80 percent by 2024. But that’s 11 years away and assumes that the state will live up to its currently established obligations — an assumption in which history suggests we should have little confidence. It also ignores the real possibility that future legislation will undermine these changes.

Moreover, state officials are assuming some generous long-term rates of return on pension fund investments. To appreciate how quickly circumstances can change, consider that during the 11-year period from 2001 to 2012, the state employees’ pension funding level declined from 102 percent to 59 percent.

In case you want to judge for yourself, the report, along with a 50-page graphical appendix, is available at www.mdpolicy.org.

In theory, properly managed pension funds can provide retirement security to public employees at a relatively low cost to the taxpayer. In practice, however, we’ve seen both Democrats and Republicans make devastating political choices resulting in severe underfunding of pensions. While the state can change the actuarial assumptions it uses, it can’t change future political behavior. As long as the health of fiduciary funds remains in the hands of politicians, there is no retirement security.

Gabriel J. Michael is a senior fellow at the Maryland Public Policy Institute and a doctoral candidate in political science at The George Washington University.