The Legislative Analysts Office added up everything the state either currently owes or will owe in the future and the bill is $340.7 billion, according to a report issued on Wednesday.

This number is not too different from the accounting in the Governor’s January Budget proposal, as reported by CSAC at the time (see the third slide), where he divided the debts and liabilities into six different categories and came up with $354.5 billion.

The largest of these liabilities is the aggregate of the state’s unfunded retirement liabilities, chiefly teacher pensions (CalSTRS’ funded status has been declining for years) and retiree health, which the state has essentially never prefunded. While the CalSTRS liability is the biggest, the good news for the state’s General Fund is that it is also one that the state isn’t entirely on the hook for, since those benefits are also funded by school districts and employees.

Other liabilities include general obligation bonds and various kinds of budgetary debt that has accumulated over the past dozen years, such as the $1.9 billion owed to counties and other local agencies for state mandates.

The LAO suggests the state do more to begin addressing the largest liabilities, noting that the longer those difficult decisions are delayed, the more expensive they will become.