For politicians who get awfully riled up about exposed genitalia in the Castro or what to call our local airport, the good folks at City Hall sure do have a knack for looking the other way when it comes to matters of huge financial import.

Take the city's $4.4 billion unfunded liability to pay for health care for its employees and retirees over the next 30 years.

A new report from the Pew Charitable Trust crunched figures for the largest city in each of the country's 30 most populous metro regions for a look at how they're faring when it comes to affording the tab on their pension and retiree health care obligations.

On the pension front, San Francisco isn't doing too badly. After the city focused intensely on the issue in 2011 and voters passed a ballot measure making changes to the system - and, after investment returns started improving after the Great Recession - San Francisco's pension system is 97 percent funded.

To cover the gap, each household in the city would have to fork over $1,677.

Just Washington, D.C. is doing better, having enough money on hand to pay 104 percent of its pension obligations. Each household there could get $646 back, and the pension fund would break even. Who says everything in Washington is broken?

Pittsburgh, for the record, is doing the worst with enough money to pay just 39 percent of its pension tab.

But when it comes to retiree health care costs, it's another story. San Francisco has saved less than 1 percent of its $4.4 billion tab - and each household would have to pay $13,487 to make up the difference.

That's actually better than 15 cities - including Boston, Chicago, Sacramento and Seattle - which have saved nothing. Cincinnati is doing the best, having saved 85 percent of what it will owe.

Mayor Ed Lee has said he'll tackle the retiree health care issue, and Supervisor Mark Farrell has called for a hearing on the matter which he said should take place in the next few weeks. He hopes to craft a ballot measure on the issue to take to voters in November.

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S.F. avoids retirees' health care issue