Depends on the state, but yes, generally public pension funds receive extraordinary (literally, as in "more than the ordinary") protection. It's certainly going to be a hell of a lot harder for a city/state to stop paying their pension than it is for your 401k to simply shrink and/or stop paying out 4% YoY. Just ask anyone who's checked their 401k balance this year.

Except that they don't follow the rules necessary for private pensions - they expect that there is always tax money to top it off when it can't get paid. We'll see if that happens.

Interesting. So hard to find trustworthy people, up to the task of supervising such a large sum of money. Extraordinary protections are certainly needed.