Darrell Preston

The Dallas Police and Fire Pension System, once applauded for a diverse investment portfolio that included Hawaiian villas, Uruguayan timber and undeveloped land in Arizona, finds itself needing to dig out of a deep hole.

Top- rated states and localities have shortchanged payments to retirement plans as rallying stocks ease the funding pressure while services such as schools and crumbling infrastructure scream for resources.

On Wednesday, we looked at the fallout surrounding Detroit’s unfunded pensions. Today we examine how other cities – New York, Chicago and Phoenix among them – are dealing with their own pensions.

Wall Street banks collected $215.6 million that Denver’s public schools paid to unwind swaps and sell bonds since the district began borrowing to cut pension costs in 2008. That sum is about two-thirds of annual teaching expenses.