The subprime mortgage mess roiling the nation’s economy offers a timely reminder that, yes, chickens do come home to roost, and when they do, the noise and smell can be awful. Which points to the subject of future health care costs for retired teachers and state employees in Texas.

New state estimates project that those costs total almost $37 billion: $19.1 billion for the Teacher Retirement System and $17.7 billion for the Employees Retirement System. Fortunately, that cost is spread over 30 years, so there’s no crisis today. Also, the figures are estimates that could prove to be too high — or too low. But though the state is continually setting aside money to fund the pensions of future retired state employees and teachers, none is being set aside for their future health care costs. This isn’t a problem for current retirees, but for those in the work force now.

“If I were a young teacher or a young state employee, I would be writing my (state) association saying, ‘You need to get a handle on this,’ ” said Sen. Robert Duncan, R-Lubbock, chairman of the Senate State Affairs Committee, in an interview this week.

Duncan, a Senate expert on pension and insurance issues, said the Legislature is aware of the problem, and he strongly suggests that teachers and state employees should not assume that taxpayers will continue to cover as much of their health insurance premiums as they do now.

House Speaker Tom Craddick, R-Midland, has directed the House Pensions and Investments Committee to “explore options for funding” retiree benefits. The committee will submit findings and recommendations to the Legislature when lawmakers next convene in regular session, in January 2009.

A dispute over an arcane but important new accounting rule underscores an important point: The state is not legally required to provide health insurance upon retirement to retired state employees and teachers.

New accounting rules adopted by an obscure but influential agency, the Governmental Accounting Standards Board, require government bodies to start giving estimates of future retirees’ health care costs in their financial statements. The new rules don’t require the state to set aside money for those costs, but to report them as a liability.

Texas agreed to provide estimates, but the Legislature enabled the comptroller to only note the estimate of retirees’ health costs on the state’s annual financial statement, not report them as a liability. The Legislature’s logic: It is not legally bound to buy that health insurance coverage in the future and, therefore, the costs should not be reported now as a liability.

No one is proposing (yet) that the state end or reduce its health insurance coverage for retired state employees and teachers.

But those at work today cannot take for granted that the state will continue to cover as much of the cost when they are retired as it does now.

Duncan said the Legislature might decide to start setting aside some money for these future costs — and if it does, that state employees and teachers, as well as school districts, might have to help.

State employees and public school teachers are hardly overpaid now, so taking on another deduction, however small, would not be welcome. Still, better to have a few feathers plucked now than to get a neck wrung in retirement.