New York state owes $72.2 billion for promised health benefits for retired government workers, a 29 percent increase from the year before, according to a financial statement.

Future retiree benefit costs rose by $16.3 billion in the fiscal year ended March 31, exceeding the state’s outstanding debt by more than $15 billion, according to the statement published last week. New York City’s retiree health-care liability was $84 billion for the fiscal year ended June 30.

“The broader question is health-care costs generally,” said Stephen Madarasz, a spokesman for the Civil Service Employees Association, New York’s biggest public-worker union. “That’s a source of concern for people around the country.”

Most states cover retiree health benefits on a pay-as-you go basis. They don’t set aside money annually to pre-fund the obligations, as they do with pensions. Last year, New York, the third-biggest U.S. state by population, spent $3.3 billion on health care for active and retired employees as health-care spending rose 6 percent.

Trust Fund

In 2008, Comptroller Thomas DiNapoli proposed creating trust funds to help the state and local governments plan for the cost of health-care coverage for retirees. Legislation creating the trusts passed the Senate in 2010. It didn’t pass the Assembly.

“This is an expense we need to plan for more effectively than we have in the past,” DiNapoli said in an e-mailed statement. “There are no easy answers, but a first step is establishing a trust account to pre-fund these obligations.”….

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