Superior Court Judge Patrick Riley's ruling has sent public safety personnel and others streaming to their local retirement boards, demanding that their pensions be increased to reflect the value of their having had access to a city or town car for personal use.

While a few retirement boards are balking at these demands. much more typical, we fear, is the reaction of Timothy Bassett, executive director of the board that oversees the retirement system of some 19 Essex County communities: "Our job is to carry out the court order, and that's what we're doing."

Also quick to jump on the gravy train was the Swampscott Retirement Board, which last month voted to boost the pension of two former police chiefs, two former fire chiefs and a former police detective who had been allowed to take their cars home with them and drive them on personal errands while working for the town.

The potential beneficiaries of this latest example of public largess argue that they were supposed to include the value of those benefits in figuring how much income tax they owed. But as David Castellarin, one of two Swampscott board members who voted against the extra payments, notes, that figure was rarely, if ever, used in determining a town employee's contribution to the system.

Ken Ardon, an assistant professor of economics at Salem State College, in a recent report for the Pioneer Institute, wrote that the public pension system in Massachusetts is "fundamentally flawed."

Indeed, there are many ways of "gaming" the system, of which this is just the latest example.

Unfortunately, when it comes to pension policy, lawmakers have always tended to side with those relative few on the public payroll over the many who pay their salaries. It's time voters demand a change in this lopsided way of thinking.