If Mike Sanders is going to prison, why does he still get a taxpayer-funded pension?

In sentencing former Jackson County Executive Mike Sanders to 27 months in prison, U.S. District Court Judge Roseann Ketchmark went beyond the 18 to 24 months that federal prosecutors sought.

It was an astonishing statement about how the judge felt about the longtime public official and his conduct while he held the highest office in Jackson County. The sentence was entirely appropriate. As part of an ongoing scheme that involved the pilfering of campaign funds to pay for fine wines and gambling trips to Las Vegas, Sanders let down a community of supporters who had trusted him to run Jackson County according to the law.

They believed that Sanders, a former Jackson County prosecutor, knew right from wrong. He didn’t — or at least he viewed that distinction as a nuisance that was blocking his path to good times.

“It causes cynicism and disengagement from our democracy,” Ketchmark said from the bench about Sanders’ conduct. “So ... in terms of the harm of the offense, is hard to measure and hard to repair.”

But now, taxpayers are facing a cruel coup de grace. County officials have ruled that Sanders, 51, remains entitled to his county pension calculated to be nearly $100,292 a year once he turns 65. If he takes it earlier, the amount would drop.

“Counsel for the pension board has determined that the pension ordinance does not require or allow for a pension benefit to be stopped due to criminal activity of the retiree unrelated to county employment,” county spokeswoman Marshanna Hester wrote in an email to The Star.

Unrelated to county employment? Really? The fact that Sanders even had access to the big dollars in political committees was directly related to his role as county executive. If this ruling is allowed to stand, county legislators should explore eliminating this loophole that apparently allows future county officials-turned-convicts to reap the benefits of such a generous pension plan.

It gets worse. Under changes to the county pension plan dating to at least 2003, Sanders’ pension could actually increase. That’s because payouts are not related to how much Sanders earned in his final years in office, as is the case for many retirees. Instead, the payments are tied to how much the Jackson County executive is earning when Sanders opts to take his pension.

In other words, Sanders’ pension is almost guaranteed to rise, and maybe significantly, with time.

Looking back on The Star’s coverage of the change from 2003, it’s clear that the public wasn’t paying much attention. At the time, no one spoke in opposition to the overly generous plan.

During deliberations on pension benefits that year, then-county legislator Rhonda Shoemaker said she had heard from constituents who opposed several aspects of the revised plan, “and I vowed to listen to them.

“I didn’t feel I should be voting on my own pension,” Shoemaker said then.

This fall, Jackson County voters will vote on charter changes that will boost the executive’s pay from $145,350 to $158,848 a year. In other words, Sanders’ pension would actually increase to $109,605 while he’s serving time if the ballot proposal passes.

While perhaps not entirely foreseeable, such a cushy retirement for convicts is indefensible. County officials need to re-examine their pension policy in the wake of the Sanders debacle.

Changes should be made so that voters can trust that their tax dollars aren’t used for perpetual payouts to long-ago political insiders who went wrong.

This story was originally published September 24, 2018 at 5:30 AM.