The Baltimore County Council on Monday is expected to hire a firm to perform death audits. It will comb through death records and look for people who have died but are still collecting retirement benefits.

The firm will be paid a flat fee as well as $70 for each death certificate it finds.

“Do we send checks to dead people?” Council Chair Izzy Patoka asked Matt Carpenter, the deputy director of the Office of Budget and Finance.

“We try to avoid it at all costs,” Carpenter replied.

There currently are more than 9,000 people in Baltimore County’s retirement system.

Under the contract, ABL technologies will be paid up to $65,000 over the next five and a half years to find out how many of those people are in no position to cash a retirement check.

WYPR is a media partner of The Baltimore Banner. Read the original story on WYPR.org.