TALLAHASSEE, Fla. (AP) — Florida'smassive retirement fund now has a $19.2 billion gapbetween the amount of money it has and the amount of money it needsto cover all current and future benefits.

A report released Monday shows that theFlorida Retirement System — home to some 900,000 activeand retired public employees — is now underfunded by 13.1percent. That's an increase of $1.2 billion over last year.

The overall pension fund is worth nearly $128 billion.

The size of the gap is still within a range considered healthyby many financial experts, but it could still fuel a politicaldebate in the Florida Legislature.

Gov. Rick Scott has complained about the long-term health of thepension plan — and whether the state is overestimating the amountit expects to earn off investments.

Florida in 2011 pushed to require public employees to startpaying three percent of their salaries to cover part of theirpension costs but that money is not being used to help make up thegap. Unions challenged the three percent contribution requirementand the case is pending before the Florida Supreme Court.

The new numbers on the pension plan were prepared by theactuarial firm Milliman and presented to a group of stateeconomists.

The numbers could change between now and December, when a finalreport is drawn up. Some of the economists on Monday said the statemay need more information on some of the assumptions underlying thenew report.

Florida's pension chief has already said that the state may needto ratchet down expectations on how much it expects to make offinvestments in the coming year.

Ash Williams, executive director of the State Board ofAdministration, has echoed the concerns expressed by Scott andothers that the state is relying on investment returns that may notbe achievable in the wake of the 2008 financial meltdown andrecord-low interest rates that have made it harder to yield largeinvestment returns. Scott once called state and local pensions a"ticking fiscal time bomb" although he did not propose any seriouschanges this year.

The state now assumes that it will earn 7.75 percent on itsinvestments in order to pay off its pension plan obligations. Thestate has not consistently met those targets. But if the state wereto lower its investment returns it would increase the unfundedportion of the pension plan.

This is the fourth year in a row that the pension fund has beenunderfunded, which largely occurred because the 2008 financialcrisis cost the pension fund billions.

There is right now an expectation that lawmakers will spendroughly $500 million in the coming year to help bring down the sizeof unfunded portion of the pension plan.