Colorado State Treasurer Dave Young is focusing on schools that have lost track of property such as gift certificates, tax refunds, unpaid wages or uncashed checks.
“Back-to-school time is a perfect opportunity to conduct an unclaimed money search for your favorite schools, from nursery schools to colleges, both public and private. We’re always happy to reunite funds with our school systems so they can be put to use to help serve our students” said Young, who is also the former president of the National Association of Unclaimed Property Administrators.
“It only takes 30 seconds to check colorado.findyourunclaimedproperty.com to see if your schools have money waiting to be claimed.”
But schools aren’t the only entities that have funds sitting in the state treasury.
A search on Tuesday, Aug. 30, revealed that several Manitou Springs organizations and entities have unclaimed property. District 14 schools are among them, and Suzi Thompson, D14 chief financial officer, said they’ve already submitted claims.
Others include the Manitou Art Center, Cherokee’s of Manitou, Manitou Springs Mineral Water, the Kiwanis Club of Manitou Springs, D’Vine Wine and Welrite LLC.
To search, just type “Manitou” in the name field. The amounts range from 80 cents to more than $250.
Last fiscal year, the Great Colorado Payback returned almost $50 million to nearly 55,000 claimants through the Unclaimed Property Division. To simplify the claims process, a pilot program that proactively returns funds was started, returning $4.1 million to 13,700 rightful owners without requiring additional paperwork for identification purposes.
Money or property turned over to the State Treasury for safekeeping is held for the owner or heir of the account and there are no time limits for filing a claim. The Colorado State Treasurer maintains a list of more than 1.7 million names of individuals, as well as schools, for whom property is available, including more than $960 million total.