We are officially in pension reform season. Two weeks ago Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger announced a deal with the state's largest employee union to roll back pension benefits for new workers. Then Los Angeles City Council President Eric Garcetti unveiled his plan to increase the retirement age and trim pension benefits for new hires. And on Monday, Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa offered his proposal to cut pension benefits for police and firefighters who retire younger and require that all sworn employees pay 2 percent of their salary toward retiree health care coverage. Meanwhile, a plan to cut benefits, increase employee contributions and raise the retirement age for civilian workers is expected to be released later this week. The reform is driven by staggering public deficits and the fact that government agencies have had to slash services -- from library hours to park maintenance to police and fire protection -- while fully funding public employee retirement benefits, which are protected by law. Here's the problem: None of the reform proposals currently on the table will get taxpayers off the hook now or in future years when the stock market tanks. Case in point: Los Angeles County. The county has some of most austere pension benefits in the state, yet county taxpayers still put up an extra $200 million this year to keep pensions funded. The county may have to pay as much as $2 billion for employee retirement by 2015 to make up for investment losses. When most other police and fire agencies in the state boosted their pension benefits to '3 percent at 50' (or 3 percent of final year salary multiplied by the number of years served), the Los Angeles County supervisors dug in their heels and kept Sheriff's Department and County Fire Department pensions at '2 percent at 50.' Civilian workers get to choose between two plans -- '2 percent at 61' if they pay into their retirement plan and '2 percent at 65' if they don't pay anything. These are hardly 'Cadillac' pension plans, compared to what other agencies have offered -- more like Hyundai plans. Yet, even with these 'cheaper' pension benefits, L.A. County is on the hook for a billion-dollar pension contribution this year. The Los Angeles County Supervisors will look this week at tweaking the county worker pension program to save money. That's the inherent liability with defined benefit programs -- the longer people live and the more health care expenses go up (and they keep going up), the more expensive those retirement promises made 20 or 30 years ago become. And even the most careful, stingy agencies get hit when the stock market crashes and pension funds lose the investment gains that are so crucial in paying for worker retirements. That's why the current round of pension reform proposals for city workers don't go far enough. They begin to trim future retirement expenses, but they don't address the fundamental problem of promising retirement benefits that may not affordable, and end up taking tax dollars that could pay for essential public services. I'll be digging into the various pension reform proposals over the next few weeks, so send me your questions, comments and suggestions. 