It’s no secret that Pennsylvania’s pension system is in dire need of reform. But those calls for change usually revolve around the system’s burgeoning, unfunded liabilities.

This year, however, it has become abundantly clear that no facet of the state’s pension system should escape a thorough review — including the system by which pension system board members decide whether to return or withhold benefits from retired employees and officials.

In case that doesn’t appear to be a pressing issue, know that former state Sen. Robert Mellow, a convicted felon who in 2012 pleaded guilty to using taxpayer-funded staff members to work on political campaigns — this week won an appeal to have his $20,000-per-month pension restored to him, despite his crimes.

On Tuesday members of the State Employees Retirement System board voted 6 to 5 to return Mellow’s pension to him. Mellow, who served in the General Assembly for 40 years and was formerly one of the most powerful Democrats in Harrisburg, is entitled to $246,000 a year for the rest of his life.

First, that’s a ridiculous sum of money for any public employee to collect from the state’s pension system. It’s a payout so big it exceeds a federal cap on pension benefits and must be paid from multiple plans.

Second, Mellow’s guilty plea should have immediately rendered him ineligible for any payout from the pension system whatsoever. He pleaded guilty to mail fraud and defrauding taxpayers after using Senate staffers to raise money and run his political campaigns. He was sentenced to 16 months in prison and served two years in federal custody before being released in March of 2014.

That’s not the career arc of a public servant who deserves to have his retirement paid-for by taxpayers. But after emerging from a federal penitentiary Mellows was able to get his pension restored by arguing that the crimes to which he pleaded guilty weren’t among those listed in the state law that governs pension forfeitures.

Pennsylvania’s $72-billion-dollar pension crisis is a larger-than-life problem. But holding corrupt elected officials accountable for their actions shouldn’t be that difficult.

If Mellow’s ridiculous argument can succeed in getting his pension restored, that sends a clear signal that the state’s Pension Forfeiture Act needs to be revised and strengthened.

Pennsylvania taxpayers have no interest in funding the luxurious retirement plan of a convicted felon who defrauded them while he was in office. Pennsylvania legislators should have every interest in making sure such a gross miscarriage of justice never occurs again.