"The stock market hovers around pre-crisis peaks, tax revenues have rebounded, and plan sponsors have raised employee contributions for all workers and/or reduced benefits for new workers, yet the funded status of state and local pension plans has once again slipped.... Because of [actuarial] smoothing, the funding results looked much better in 2009 and 2010 than developments warranted, but less good than developments in 2011. In order to highlight the impact of asset smoothing in the short run and the stock market in the slightly longer run, this brief provides an update on the funded status of state and local plans in 2011 and also reports projections for the period 2012-2015."