Government pensions, once thought to be ironclad in California, are under attack in court once again.

Two creditors have formally challenged the bankrupt city of San Bernardino’s plan to repay its debts to CalPERS, setting up another big court fight over pension plans and whether cash-strapped governments can keep their promises to retirees.

The challenge comes two months after San Bernardino officials said they would pay the city’s $24 million-a-year CalPERS bill in full, ending two years of suspense. The city also revealed it had begun repaying millions of dollars in past-due obligations to CalPERS, debts that arose when San Bernardino halted payments to the pension fund for several months after filing for bankruptcy in 2012.

Ambac Assurance Corp., a New York bond insurer, and EEPK, a Luxembourg bank, sued the city Wednesday in U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Riverside, where San Bernardino has been sorting out its financial woes since 2012. Their complaint: San Bernardino shouldn’t be paying its CalPERS debt when it hasn’t paid them a dime on debts totaling more than $59 million.

Labor leaders said they weren’t surprised to hear of a new challenge to pensions.  “It’s not breaking news to me that a Wall Street bank would do everything it can to get more money, and would have little or no regard for anyone else’s situation,” said Dave Low of Californians for Retirement Security, an advocacy group backed by public employee unions.

Teague Paterson, of the Oakland law firm Beeson Tayer & Bodine, which represents public employee unions, said the challenge from Ambac and EEPK “seems like a stretch.” He said cities and counties have to maintain their pension programs in order to retain qualified workers.  “You need to be able to offer (pensions), not only offer but guarantee that the offer will be honored,” he said. Paterson isn’t involved in the San Bernardino case.

But Dan Pellissier, a California pension-reform advocate, said San Bernardino should try to scale back its annual CalPERS bill. “The whole purpose of bankruptcy is to come up with a fair resolution of your debts,” said Pellissier, president of California Pension Reform. “Providing pensions with special protections is contrary to the purpose.” He said San Bernardino is “doing a disservice” to its residents by not attempting to tackle pension costs.

Pension-reform advocates note that Detroit won approval last fall for a bankruptcy plan that includes a 4.5 percent reduction in pension benefits. Pellissier said there’s no reason similar cutbacks couldn’t take place in San Bernardino.

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