This is an uphill battle for CA jurisdictions. They would do better to focus on their (unfunded) retiree healthcare (which had never been contracted for in the first place). This undoubtedly would leave many public retirees under the age of 65 paying their entire premiums out of their pensions at COBRA rates.

Some of these retirees (under 50%, IMHO) will medically qualify for an HDHP on the open market at half the monthly premium that their pension plan would charge them (if their retiree health benefits are taken away). The vast majority of public retirees, of course, are “used to” more “comprehensive coverage” but an HDHP offers far more freedom and is preferable for all parties in this instance, IMO, in order to reduce jurisdictions’ retirement funding obligations.

I just don’t see BK courts as having the ability to gut the corpus of the pensions of those public employees already retired to soon to be retired.

CA jurisdictions MAY be able to, HAVE been able to and WILL be able to, however, increase vesting times and change the calculations by which a pension is calculated for those existing employees with less than approx 10-12 years of service, as well as new hires.