The Maryland state retirement and pension system is in bad shape. The deluxe benefits package has $37 billion in assets, but even that amount isn’t enough to meet the promises made to government bureaucrats. In the last fiscal year, this prodigious sum was invested in a way that yielded a negligible 0.36 percent return. That would be bad enough, but State Treasurer Nancy Kopp, chairman of the pension-system trustees, insists on pretending the fund is earning 7.75 percent for the purposes of calculating future value. This accounting gimmick masks the dire situation of the program’s finances. Retirement funds are generally...