It's back.

Assembly Speaker John A. Perez has reintroduced his death benefits giveaway bill for the benefit of powerful police and firefighters unions.

Like last year's measure, Assembly Bill 1373 seeks to expand the statute of limitations under which surviving family members of California police and firefighters can claim death benefits worth at least $250,000.

Just how costly these enhanced benefits will be to state and local governments is still unclear. A draft of this bill, introduced right before the bill deadline on Feb. 22, leaves out key specifics. But representatives for beleaguered local governments are bracing for the worst.

Under current law, surviving family members of public safety officers injured in the line of duty cannot collect death benefits if the officer dies more than 4 1/2 years after the date of the injury.

The law also provides that cancer and heart disease when contracted by a police officer or firefighter are presumed to be job-related.

As originally introduced, last year's measure would have eliminated the statute of limitations entirely for death benefits for public safety officers. So, given the presumptions in law, if an officer died of cancer or a heart attack 10 or even 20 years after retiring, his family could still collect death benefits worth $250,000 at minimum. Eventually the bill was tightened to double the statute of limitations, not eliminate it entirely.

Thankfully, Gov. Jerry Brown vetoed the bill after it easily passed through both houses of the labor-friendly, Democratic-dominated Legislature. In his veto message, he cited the bill's huge costs and the lack of "credible evidence" that death by cancer is more common for firefighters than for people in the general population.

California voters agreed to raise taxes through Proposition 30 in November on the promise that the revenue would go to education and to reduce the state's deficit.

If the governor and lawmakers intend to keep this promise, they shouldn't increase perks for public employees who already enjoy among the richest benefits available to workers anywhere in the nation.