Accounting Rule Targets Benefits in Public Sector

Districts, others must tally long-term obligations.

Deadlines are looming for school districts and other public employers to comply with a new financial-reporting rule on the long-term costs for health and other insurance benefits that have been promised to employees.

For the first time, local, state, and federal agencies will have to disclose future benefit costs in current budgets, a requirement that could force policymakers to confront the under-the-radar issue of meeting those costs and explain why such obligations have grown so large.

But even as the high stakes become increasingly apparent, many school finance officials are only beginning to wrestle with how to...