All San Diego County cities have big pension problems -- problems imposed by our own bonehead politicians. But the problems of the San Diego city pension raises the numbskull standard to new heights.

San Diego's huge pension deficit is well known. But what is not understood is that the city provides two extra pensions, and what that largesse means for city worker retirees.

Even with the new second-tier pension structure, all current San Diego employees are largely grandfathered under the lucrative plans discussed below.

The problem is deeper than the pension underfunding, or even the burgeoning unfunded liability that now exceeds $2 billion. The problem is that city workers get a compensation package that's far more generous than what the taxpayers receive, or what is necessary to hire city workers. It is fundamentally unfair to the employers of the city workers -- San Diego's beleaguered taxpayers .

Below is an example of what pensions a career "general" city employee (not police and firefighters) can receive. Police and firefighters get two pensions (assuming they participate in a Deferred Retirement Option Plan), but general employees sometimes can receive three pensions.

A newspaper column format limits detailed explanation of the math. But our Excel spreadsheet is available for "what if" modeling and analysis.

Let's consider a city general employee hired at age 25, "retiring" at age 55 and then remaining on the job via the DROP for five more years before really retiring at age 60 with a final salary of $75,000. Such a retiree gets three pensions -- the well-known city defined pension plan, the relatively unknown Supplemental Pension Savings Plan (essentially a full matching 401k plan) and the infamous DROP program.

Assuming the SPSP account averages an 8 percent annual return, and DROP earns an average 4 percent guaranteed, the total age 60 pension for such a retiree (assuming a conservative 3 percent total annual pay increases from age 25 to 55) comes to more than $154,000 annually -- plus some annual cost of living increases.

But that's not all. Not hardly. Upon the retiree's death, the DROP and SPSP amounts will be paid out to designated beneficiaries. In this example, the lump sum will be about $1,313,000 -- more than 17 times the highest year's salary.

This example is intended to demonstrate the magnitude of the giveaway. There are literally an infinite number of retiree options, investment returns, etc., etc. For instance, a retiree may choose to take more from the SPSP and DROP accounts than they earn -- increasing today's pensions while leaving less for beneficiaries.

There are other variables too difficult to program into such a spreadsheet. But all these differences have a limited effect on the magnitude of the final pensions.

If there's a more generous pension package offered by anyone in California -- public or private -- we are not aware of its existence. And we've looked. San Diego politicians must finally realize that a drastic overhaul of city compensation is needed now. Failing that, the city needs to contract out every possible city job.

Richard Rider is chairman of San Diego Tax Fighters.