It’s a start. Keep going.

That was the message that state Auditor General Eugene DePasquale and state Treasurer Joe Torsella last week gave to the State Employees’ Retirement System, which operates the pension fund for retired state workers.

While SERS’ efforts to spend less money on managers has borne fruit — it shelled out $167 million last year, compared to $345 million in 2007 — Mr. DePasquale issued an audit urging the system to cut some more. Mr. Torsella issued a statement underscoring Mr. DePasquale’s remarks, saying he applauded “recent steps SERS has taken to reduce fees while urging the system to accelerate and intensify those efforts.”

That was the right message, considering SERS has an unfunded liability of $19.5 billion and posted a lower-than-expected 6.5 percent investment return last year. It all means SERS should pour every dollar possible into the pension fund.

The Public School Retires’ Retirement System also needs to do more to rein in fees, Mr. DePasquale noted in an audit of that big pension fund he released in May. Also underfunded, it spent more than $416 million on investment manager fees last year, down from $441 million the year before. At the time, Mr. DePasquale quite rightly said PSERS shoud have a “never-ending focus” on fee reduction.

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