A fiscally conservative think-tank is warning that New York’s public employee pension costs are headed for fiscal disaster.

The Empire Center for New York Policy, which is funded largely by private industry, says the cost for taxpayers will skyrocket billions of dollars in the next several years. According to the report, the cost for teachers’ pensions will more than quadruple over the next five years, the equivalent of an 18 percent tax hike.

The bill for state and local workers will double in that period.

“Something has to give,” says E.J. McMahon, senior fellow with the Empire Center.

But state worker unions are not about to freely give back hard-won benefits. Steve Madarasz, spokesman for CSEA, which took part in an Empire Center forum on pension costs, says there is no need to switch from so-called “defined-benefit” plans to things like the 401-K plans most private employees now receive.

Madarasz says the average CSEA retiree only gets $14,000 a year, but the Empire Center says the average CSEA worker makes $40,000 a year while on the job, and, after working for 30 years, can retire on $25,000 a year, tax free, the kind of pension not available for private workers.

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