If there is any lingering doubt about whether justice was done in the Sheila Dixon corruption case last week, it's the propriety of the mayor leaving office in disgrace, only to collect $83,000 a year in pension benefits for life - a number that is likely to escalate in future years and could ultimately cost the city more than $2.2 million.

She will be able to keep her pension only because State Prosecutor Robert A. Rohrbaugh negotiated a plea agreement that leaves no conviction on her record. Had her December embezzlement conviction been allowed to stand - or, similarly, if she'd been found guilty of perjury and received a sentence other than probation before judgment - the mayor would most likely have lost all pension benefits.

Clearly, Mr. Rohrbaugh had no particular interest in sparing the city's pension system that additional burden. He has said as much. And considering that the legal fees for the Dixon defense team could run to the seven figures, perhaps she will not see that much of it anyway.

What makes the windfall outrageous is not that the mayor is receiving any pension at all but that she will receive so much. That's not a product of the corruption case (it was never within the power of the prosecutor to tinker with the size of her pension payout) but it is further evidence of how far awry the pensions of elected officials and many others in the public sector have gone.

Part of the problem is that investment losses have helped put the nation's local and state government pensions about $2 trillion in the hole, according to one recent estimate. Many such funds were vulnerable because they'd adopted increasingly risky strategies to keep pace with rising costs.

In Baltimore, the fire and police pension plan is $165 million in the red, and officials are negotiating measures including possible benefit cuts. That raises the distinct possibility that retired police officers will have to get by with less, while a disgraced mayor is left rolling in clover.

Not all public pensions are nearly so lucrative, of course, although many seem downright gold-plated when compared to what's happened in the private sector, where employers have switched from defined benefit to defined contribution plans such as 401(k) accounts. It's also not uncommon for retiring government employees to be double- or triple-dippers, stacking up pensions from previous public sector jobs. Former City Council member/mayor/governor/comptroller William Donald Schaefer is probably the all-time champion as far as that goes.

But when elected officials end up with retirement benefits so far beyond what their constituents will ever receive, something has gone terribly wrong. Baltimore County is a prime example; politicians there should be braced for serious voter backlash over County Council pensions that are giving one departing member an annual benefit equal to his salary for life.

From New Jersey to California, the story is much the same. Elected officials can't continue to receive such generous benefits when so many Americans are struggling to piece together a retirement of any kind, particularly in the midst of a national crisis of underfunded public pensions. The Dixon case merely underscores this unacceptable trend.

Readers respond Anyone who is a mayor or cop in Baltimore should get a great pension.

If you need extra money to pay for their pensions, just tax lawyers more.

Mr. Ordinary