Chicago on the hook for $24 billion, triple a year ago

Crain's Chicago Business reports on that one party town :

The city's reported net liabilities nearly tripled last year, soaring to a stunning $23.8 billion, pushed up by new accounting rules that require City Hall to be more transparent in its public balance sheet.

That's the bottom line of the city's new comprehensive financial statement for 2015 that was released today, a document that also indicates City Hall actually is beginning to dig out of a mountain of accumulated pension debt, but starkly underlines just how high that mountain had become.

The Comprehensive Annual Financial Report for calendar 2015 (you can read it below) indicates the city as of Dec. 31 had $42.1 billion in physical and financial assets, and long-term liabilities of more than $66 billion, a combined net of negative $23.8 billion.

That averages out to about $8,800 for each of Chicago's 2.7 million residents.

That's an increase from a negative $6.5 billion in 2014. The reason for the growth in net liabilities—in short, money the city is obligated to pay out over time—is almost entirely unfunded liability in the city's four employee pension funds, covering police, firefighters, laborers and white-collar workers.

The key word here is "reported."

Imagine that.