You want to know why pension reform is a great civic battle of our time in California?

Look to the city of Sacramento, where by week's end 42 city cops will be fired so the city can balance its budget.

It doesn't have to be this way, but the Sacramento Police Officers Association won't give an inch on altering pensions to avert an erosion of public safety.

This is on the SPOA and only on them.

The cops seem to be gambling on the belief that Sacramento is a city of state workers drawing state pensions who side with the cops on this issue.

Wrong. As Mayor Kevin Johnson said Tuesday: Pension reform is coming, there is no stopping it.

But more than anything, what Sacramento cops are being asked to do is very reasonable. They won't have to absorb a 10 percent salary cut, as San Jose cops just did. Sacramento cops won't have their salaries reduced at all.

They are simply being asked to start contributing to their pensions, as most of us do. Right now, city cops get their pensions for free.

These are pre-tax dollars. Even if officers contribute to their pensions, the money is still theirs to use in retirement. Currently, cops who retire at age 50 receive 3 percent of their salary in retirement benefits for every year of service. That's beyond generous.

If cops paid 9 percent of their salaries into their pensions, they would still get a robust deal and the city would save $5.2 million. Couple those savings with federal money and other belt-tightening moves, and Sacramento saves the 42 cops about to be lost.

Veteran cops say: We made concessions in 2009, where is all that money? First off, the cops didn't concede anything. They just deferred their 5 percent raises over time.

It's true that Sacramento agreed to the current pension plan. The city made commitments based on projections that the economy would get better. It didn't and won't anytime soon.

City politicians like the mayor are facing this reality now. But the cops refuse to budge – as do other city unions.

Pension reform gets confused by politics, but in Sacramento, it's about simple mathematics.

The city is $39 million in the hole and will have to cut $11 million in each of the next two years.

Sacramento is borrowing money to make payroll because the reserve is low. City tax revenue has dropped to 2005 levels, while more than 80 percent of discretionary spending goes to salaries and benefits for police and firefighters.

It's called a years-long recession. What's happening in Sacramento could be called a disaster waiting to happen. It could be called a microcosm of California, where seemingly everyone clings to their ideology – and money – no matter the consequences.

© Copyright The Sacramento Bee. All rights reserved.

Call The Bee's Marcos Breton, (916) 321-1096.

• Read more articles by Marcos Breton