Another day, another report on how badly Illinois taxpayers are in hock because of allegedly excessive worker pensions: in this case, a cool $203 billion.

The report citing that eye-popping number comes from the Illinois Policy Institute, a libertarian think tank that certainly will win no medals from the Illinois Federation of Labor but usually gets its numbers right.

According to the institute, the most commonly used figure — $83 billion in unfunded pension liabilities — applies only to what the state's five funds collectively will owe that they don't now have assets to cover.

In addition, it says, the state still owes $15.5 billion on state pension obligation bonds issued when Rod Blagojevich was governor, and local units of government collectively have $38.2 billion in unfunded pension liabilities.

Also, health insurance promised to retirees has not been funded and will cost the state and local governments an estimated $66 billion, the institute says.

I'd add a couple of big asterisks to some of those numbers.

For one, while the state does have to pay off Blago's POB, it is using a portion of its normal annual pension contributions to do so, and state pension funds invested proceeds of the POB long ago, increasing their assets.

Also, unlike the pension debt, the health insurance payments are discretionary. If officials wanted to end free or almost-free health insurance for retirees tomorrow, they likely could do so legally, though doing so surely would set off a political storm.

Anyhow, the institute's solution is to cut pension benefits. It notes that the total $203 billion figure equates to $41,000 per Illinois household.

No reaction yet from labor. But I do have a reaction to a report I wrote about earlier in the week from the Pew Center on the States, which said Illinois ranks 50th of the 50 states in funding pension obligations and is falling further back.

The reaction to the report comes from the National Public Pension Coalition, which represents public-sector workers.

In a statement, it says it's "simply unfair to repeatedly punish our teachers, nurses, police officers, and other public employees, many of whom do not receive Social Security."

If current trends continue, it adds, retirees will be "pushed into poverty" and forced onto state-aid programs.

Concludes that group: "The bottom line is our politicians repeatedly broke promises by failing to contribute the required amounts to workers' pension plans, and then raided those funds for other purposes. It's that same fiscal ineptitude coupled with Wall Street greed that drove our economy off the cliff in the first place."