EDITORIAL\The Bonin windfall\A serial killer bilking Social Security for 50 grand.

IT'S a shake-your-head kind of story: Serial killer William Bonin was able to bilk the Social Security system for $50,000 during his 14 years on Death Row.

Bonin, who had been receiving monthly mental disability checks, should have stopped receiving payments after he went to prison in 1982. The government discovered the error last month when the funeral home handling the executed killer's remains reported his death.

The checks were being sent directly to a joint account Bonin shared with his mother. She used the money to pay the mortgage on her home.

Aside from being an outlandish example of how the government mismanages the mammoth pension program, the Bonin case illustrates the need for basic changes in the system.

The Social Security Administration now has 50 separate agreements with each of the states that asks prison officials to report the names and Social Security numbers of all inmates.

Social Security matches the inmates' names and social security numbers with its recipients, clearing inmates off its eligibility list. (The administration has the same arrangement with funeral directors, and also purchases state death records).

Sometimes it works. But prisoners, being prisoners, often use aliases and fake Social Security numbers, and prison officials have neither the time nor the resources to verify the information.

In response to the outrage over the Bonin incident, the Social Security Administration has asked every correctional facility in the United States for an accurate list of inmates and their Social Security numbers by March 14. It plans to purge its files, making sure there are no other Bonins out there.

But a more effective approach may be in a Social Security Administration proposal now trying to find its way to Congress.

Under that plan, state prisons would receive $400 for every prisoner who is weeded out of the system. The money would help defray the costs of periodically verifying prisoner information and reporting it to Washington. This seems a more reasonable alternative than simply creating another unfunded mandate.

The administration has been looking for a bill on which to attach its proposal since last fall, but so far has come up empty, notes Phil Gambino, a Social Security Administration spokesman.

It's not the massive overhaul politicians have been debating, but it is a modest step in the right direction. Perhaps the Bonin fiasco will inspire lawmakers to find a way to get the proposal moving so it can get the careful airing it deserves.