It turns out that Washington state has an interesting tool that you can use to evaluate pensions. I still wouldn't trust it given the concerns I listed above, but it does give some interesting results.
First, I have to laugh at the official statement on this page:
https://www.drs.wa.gov/about/pensions/default.htm"Washington state has fully funded and underfunded state retirement plans. Current state funding policy requires additional contributions to return the underfunded plans to a fully funded status. As a result of that commitment, it is expected all Washington state retirement plans will have adequate assets to provide for all earned benefits into the future."
Translation: We haven't fully funded all of our retirement plans in the past, but trust us - we will be fully funding them going forward.
Then you can go to their calculator here:
http://fiscal.wa.gov/actuarydataAnd if you enter "actuarial value of assets" (adjusted values based upon actuarial assumptions that one hopes are reasonable, but only the actuaries really know) and "statuary rate for funding" (the rate of return that state or federal law allows the pension plans to assume - i.e. 7.5%), only two of the nine pension plans listed are "fully funded" and the rest are underfunded.
But if you select a discount rate (rate of return on assets) of 5%, then only one of them is fully funded and the rest are severely underfunded.
Kudos to Washington state for publishing their actuarial assumptions as well:
http://leg.wa.gov/osa/presentations/Documents/Valuations/17AVR/2017AVR-ActuarialValuationFINAL.PDFValuation Interest Rate 7.50%
General Salary Increase 3.50%
Inflation 2.75%
Growth in Membership 0.95%
Note that their current funding status and projections assume an average 7.5% rate of return from supposedly conservative investments, so even assuming aggressive market returns they still can't pay 100% of the commitments that have already been made. If you change the rate of return assumption to 8.5% (statuary rate + 1%), then most of the plans become fully funded except for PERS Plan 1 (62% funded) and TRS Plan 1 (65% funded). So the oldest funds in their portfolio are truly hopeless and will never be able to pay their promised benefits in full without a taxpayer bailout.
Would you trust them with a track record like that? I sure wouldn't.