CA pensions were drastically scaled back several years ago because people thought they were so outrageous. Instead of retiring at 55 with 75% of your max salary, you now can retire at 62 with 70%. Which, for the average public sector employee, really isn't a great deal. A lot of times you could actually have more money in retirement if you worked in the private sector and had a 401k with some employer match. It depends on the agency, obviously, but most places require you to put in 7-8% of your salary annually.
As an example, if you work for 40 years and average $100k annually, and you put 8k a year into a 401k with 50% match and average 5% returns, you'll have 1.5 million+ by age 62. That could buy an annuity that would pay you $90-100k per year, compared to the $70k a year from a pension. If you invest well and get returns similar to the S&P long-term average, the numbers aren't even close. Plus, your money is stuck in your pension unless you leave your job in most cases, so you can't use it for emergencies, home buying, etc. like you can with other retirement accounts.
The security/guaranteed income of a pension is nice, and if you can get a high-level position at the end of your career to skew the 'max salary' calculations it can definitely work in your favor, but for the average paper pusher, even most engineers, architects, etc., it's not markedly better than a decent retirement plan from a private company.
The pension numbers are really only outrageous for the police chiefs, department directors, etc. who get a $200k+/year job for a few years at the end of their career. And those types make up a very small percentage of the workforce. So while they're definitely draining resources, don't assume that every CA public sector employee is going to be rich in retirement, because most won't be.