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After former state Sen. Robert Mellow of Lackawanna County served a federal prison sentence for crimes related to his conduct in office, he managed to convince a state pension board that there was no exact equivalent in state law for the federal felony he committed.

That argument is so much baloney, yet the board reversed a previous denial of Mellow’s $245,000 annual pension — an outcome that outraged even Mellow’s fellow gravy-train passengers in the state Legislature.

Gov. Tom Wolf signed a new law Thursday that lawmakers passed in response to Mellow’s case. It significantly toughens the standards for public pension forfeiture but still manages to miss the point.

The law retains its predecessor’s premise that pension forfeiture by public officials or employees should be based on specific charges rather than on the individual’s conduct. There is a huge difference.

Mellow, for example, abused the power of his office. It shouldn’t make any difference whether he was charged with mail fraud or, as the late columnist Mike Royko used to say, loitering with intent to gawk. The issue remains his violation of the public trust, for which pension forfeiture serves a deterrent for others who would do the same.

Consider the case of former Scranton School District business manager Gregg Sunday. He stole money from taxpayers by using district money to pay for his personal car repairs by a supposedly contracted district mechanic. He was able to negotiate a plea to a charge that enabled him to keep his pension, even though the name or grading of the charge does not diminish his betrayal of his public duty.

Yet the new law basically is an expanded list of specific crimes that trigger pension forfeiture. Though more extensive than its predecessor, the bill still invites plea negotiations for charges that evade pension forfeiture.

Lawmakers should not rest on the improvement they passed, but make it clear in further legislation that conduct in office, rather than the ability to negotiate a favorable plea, is the controlling factor for pension forfeiture.