Less than two years ago, state lawmakers pledged the New Jersey lottery as an asset to the public-worker pension fund, bringing some relief from its many billions of dollars in unfunded liabilities.

Now, as proceeds from lottery ticket sales are deposited into the pension fund month after month, Gov. Phil Murphy wants to know what other assets belonging to the state — roads, airports, bridges and naming rights, among others — can be sold, leased or otherwise leveraged to help fund government workers’ pensions.

The state Treasury Department is soliciting bids from financial advisers to evaluate the many assets owned by the state, New Jersey Turnpike Authority, South Jersey Transportation Authority and NJ Transit and to recommend which have potential to improve the health of the pension system.

“It’s widely acknowledged that New Jersey faces many fiscal challenges, which won’t be solved by any single magic bullet," state Treasurer Elizabeth Muoio said in a statement. "While the idea of maximizing the value of state assets has been discussed for many years, little concrete action has ever been taken. At the direction of the governor, we designed this (request for bids) to explore tangible, creative solutions to help maximize the state’s assets in order to minimize the burden to taxpayers.”

New Jersey’s pension system is among the worst funded in the country, damage done by investment setbacks and decades of underfunding by governors from both parties.

Murphy, a Democrat, has vowed to right that wrong and keep the state on track to make full pension contributions by 2023. He ran for office in 2017 without much more of a plan to fix pensions, and he has said he doesn’t want to reduce employee benefits or force workers to pay more for their benefits when it is the state that created problems by contributing too little.

The administration’s call out to financial consultants represents another strategy — absent cutting benefits or raising employee contributions — to improve the fund as the governor confronts pensions’ rising yearly tab and pressure on the state budget. The state will contribute $3.2 billion this year, 60 percent of what is recommended by actuaries.

It also comes months after state Senate President Stephen Sweeney released a report calling for big changes to reduce the cost of government here, including possible tolled fast lanes and cutting government employee health care and pension benefits.

Sweeney, D-Gloucester, praised Murphy for following his lead in looking to state assets for help.

“The Treasury’s action is fully in line with our recommendations to analyze all of the asset holdings not only of the state government itself, but particularly of various independent authorities, including transportation infrastructure, water and sewer authorities, real estate and reservoirs,” Sweeney said in a statement. He said the Legislature stands ready to get it done, “as we did two years ago when we worked with the last administration to cut the unfunded pension liability by putting the New Jersey Lottery into the pension system.”

The lottery system guarantees the pension roughly $1 billion a year from ticket sales, and its $13 billion valuation improved the state’s ratio of assets to liabilities, as measured by the state’s own accounting rules.

The winning bidder of the state’s solicitation will have until May 15 to analyze the state’s assets — including property, buildings, roads, airports, bridges, ports, recreational facilities, transit facilities, rights of way, and air, development or naming rights — and make its recommendations.

Samantha Marcus may be reached at smarcus@njadvancemedia.com. Follow her on Twitter @samanthamarcus. Find NJ.com Politics on Facebook.