The ticking is getting louder. But apparently not loud enough to be heard in Harrisburg. That ticking is a time bomb, and it's about to detonate in the face of Pennsylvania governments and school districts. It is the financial mess that is the state's two major pension systems. They're hemorrhaging red ink, and that financial Waterloo is about to splash all over local school districts, and the homeowners whose property taxes pay a huge chunk of the education tab in this state.

Get used to hearing a lot about these two entities, the State Employees Retirement System, and the Public School Employees Retirement System.

Both are defined benefit plans, meaning employees get a specific retirement benefit based on years of employment and other factors.

And both are in serious trouble. Basically, they are about to be swamped by a deluge of new retirees looking for their benefits, and the money isn't there to pay them.

All of this can be traced back to a little bookkeeping magic that was pulled off by Gov. Tom Ridge and the Legislature back in 2001, along with the state shrinking its fiduciary duty to adequately fund the plans, coupled with the stock market, where much of the funds' balances were invested, going off a cliff.

Now the bill is coming due. The contribution by taxpayers into these funds is about to go through the roof. Some estimates indicate the tab could go from $1 billion now to $6 billion in three years.

Local school districts could be on the hook for $1.9 billion, up from $600 million. Where do you think they're going to get the dough? That's right. Guard your wallet.

The financial juggling several years ago only delayed the bill. Now it's due. The hope was that maybe the stock market would have cured the fiscal imbalance in the interim. That didn't go exactly according to plan, as anyone with a 401(k) plan can attest.

Everybody knows the system is broken. That's the easy part. Fixing it is another matter. It will be anything but easy. In fact, it will be painful.

Gov. Ed Rendell has proposed what amounts to "refinancing" the plans, once again stretching out the payments, phasing in the increases over the next 10 years. He included the proposal in his budget blueprint.

Current retirees and those already vested in the system would not be affected, but future employees can almost assuredly bank on a dip in benefits.

There are also calls to address the defined benefit aspect of the plans, as well as rolling back eligibility to the 10-year mark.

The Pennsylvania School Boards Association is on board with what is being referred to as a hybrid plan.

Less thrilled with the idea, not surprisingly, is the Pennsylvania State Education Association, the teachers' union.

The ball is in the Legislature's court. And time is running out. The ticking is getting louder.

Is Harrisburg listening?