The state legislature was pushed by Philadelphia, last month, to change the law to let municipalities across the state  pay less annually to account for investment losses, spread the payments out to cover the losses, and to artificially increase the value of their pension funds by 30 percent from 20 percent.

''This is not reform, this is just deferring costs to future generations,'' said Richard Dreyfuss, a pension specialist and fellow at the Commonwealth Foundation, a conservative think tank in Harrisburg. ''We are putting less money in plans that are already underfunded and depleted by recent events. That's not a good recipe.''

See the Morning Call story.