Employee pension and health care benefits should be added to the Budget to reflect the total costs of running the Government, according to the Chamber of Commerce.Peter Everson, head of the Chamber’s Economic Division, said the current Budget accounts for the amount Government plans to spend in the coming year.It does not include the costs of employee pension, healthcare and compensated absences, all of which have been rising at a substantial rate over the past six years. These are included in the audited financial statements of the consolidated fund.Mr Everson said Government currently hires employees and agrees to pay for their salary, pension and health care benefits.Only the salary is included in the Budget, the pension and healthcare costs are included in the consolidated fund.Once that person retires, Government must continue to pay their health care for the rest of that person’s life. People are living longer due to medical technologies and advances, he said, and as a result Government is having to pay for their employees for a longer length of time.In addition, the number of employees is going up and the costs of buying pension and health cover is escalating.The audited Consolidated Fund financial statement stated that the actuarial cost for employee healthcare to the Island was $29,806,678 in 2010.This cost has gone up on average 29 percent per annum over the last six years.Mr Everson said this was not sustainable and said he hoped Government would have acknowledged these figures and added them to the total of public debt to show the total costs of operations for 2010.He said Government needed to have a debate or consultation period with stakeholders like Bermuda Public Servants Union and Bermuda Industrial Union to find ways to curb these costs.He said it was important to discuss what is affordable, to avoid a situation like what happened to General Motors, a company which inevitably went bankrupt.“What we are hoping to hear from Government that this is on the table and during the year they would have discussion with employees unions over this.“We weren’t expecting anything to be done this year, but we were hoping for the recognition that the problem exists and is growing each month.”There are approximately 7,000 employees of the Government, including those directly employed by Government and through quangos, who are getting these medical benefits.Mr Everson said: “What we are seeing over time there needs to be a concerted effort to transfer some of these people from the Government payroll to the private sector.“The Government is far more generous in what they pay proportionately and also in the post-retirement funding.“The future cost of post retirement is a huge snowball because you are making promises to these people but not having enough money to pay for it so it’s just getting bigger and bigger.“There isn’t an infinite amount of money in the economy and you can’t pretend there is always enough money to pay for this, but do not work out how it’s going to be paid for.”He continued: “It’s not sustainable in the long term and if they do not do anything they would eventually have to reduce the size of the civil service, cutting down the number of jobs.”The Ministry of Finance was unable to comment yesterday, but is expected to respond once the 201½012 budget process is complete, according to a spokesman.