U.S. state and local governments will have to report billions of dollars in health-care liabilities on their balance sheets under an accounting change aimed at improving disclosure of retiree benefits, as reported by BloombergBusiness.

As described by Bloomberg,

The change is part of a push by the accounting-standards setter to improve how governments report the cost of worker benefits that they haven’t set aside enough money to pay. Similar requirements started taking effect for pensions last year.

Read the whole article here.

MACo has worked with member jurisdictions to create an investment trust to help counties invest toward these long-term liabilities — see details in previous Conduit Street coverage here: MACo Formally Launches OPEB Investment Trust.

For more information about implemnenting another recent reporting change, dealing with pensions, read our previous post on Conduit Street, MACo, MML Pursue Pension Liability Reporting Process.