State Auditor Warns of Soaring Civil Service Pension Costs

State Comptroller Matanyahu Englman said in a new report that the Civil Service Pensions Directorate has failed to fix, or has only slightly fixed, shortcomings already flagged in a 2020 audit. The report also found that about 14,000 retirees did not have the maximum tax deducted from their payments, even though they had not submitted any request for relief.

According to the audit, the directorate paid 15 billion shekels in 2024 to 120,000 pensioners and survivors. The report said the liabilities handled by the directorate, out of the state's total obligations for budget-funded pensions, reached 374 billion shekels at the end of 2024.

The auditor warned that annual spending on budget-funded pensions is expected to keep rising sharply. By 2039, total payments are projected to reach 41.73 billion shekels.