The state’s taxpayers are on the hook for nearly a quarter of a trillion dollars in unfunded health-care costs for retired government workers, a blockbuster report says.

The Empire Center for Public Policy says it has toted up, for the first time, the combined unfunded liability of the state and its biggest local governments, school districts and public authorities.

They’ve promised nearly $250 billion — including $83.9 billion from the city and $73.2 billion from the state at last count — “that they have set aside no money to pay for,” the conservative think tank declared in a report it released yesterday.

The staggering total “represents a mammoth potential transfer of wealth from future taxpayers to current government employees and retirees — for a type of benefit that is not available to the vast majority of private-sector workers,” the center added. “The burden of retiree health care is clearly unsustainable and unaffordable.”

The center pegs the potential national bill at as much as $1.5 trillion, with New York’s disproportionately big share driven by its “relatively large government payrolls and generous benefits” — including free health coverage for almost all city retirees.

“The retiree health-care iceberg is getting bigger and more dangerous with each passing year,” said E.J. McMahon, a senior fellow with the center and the Manhattan Institute.

“If elected officials don’t act soon to shrink this problem, it could eventually sink us,” he added….

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