Richmond paid over $550K to dead retirees

Axios

12-05-2025

Richmond has paid over half a million dollars to dead people in the past nine years, according to a recent audit of the city's retirement system.
Why it matters: It's yet another example of why many Richmonders have lost trust in the city's ability to properly handle taxpayer dollars.
Driving the news: The city audit, released Friday, says the Richmond Retirement System (RRS) not only failed to prevent and detect the problem but hasn't recovered most of the money.
And one retired City Hall employee received nearly $250,000 in benefit payments over seven years after his death.
What they found: The payments happened because of "several control weaknesses," per the audit, including:
Lack of oversight or management not knowing this was happening.
Staff failing to identify when a retiree died.
Inconsistent tracking of overpayments.
Not acting to recover overpayments even when identified.
Incomplete death reports.
By the numbers: RRS paid 44 deceased retirees in that period, 32 of whom had been dead for over two months.
Nine of those retirees died between January 2019 and October 2023 and received payments totaling over $110,000.
Between the lines: These overpayments are a small fraction of the total benefits RRS administers.
And in response to the audit, RRS — which is governed by a seven-member board — wrote to the city that privacy law changes have made getting death information increasingly difficult.
What's next: Improvements at RRS are already underway, including using better death auditing services, operating procedures and tracking processes.