By Ron Womble

rwomble@morningsun.net

PITTSBURG, Kan. -- The Kansas State Treasurer, Steven Johnson, is on a mission. He wants to return your money.

Johnson stopped by the Morning Sun on his way through town, Friday, to encourage Crawford County citizens to check the state’s unclaimed property list to see whether they have funds due to them. With more than $6.4 million of unclaimed property from Crawford County sitting in state coffers, chances are better than picking a winning lottery ticket that they do.

Johnson said money ends up as unclaimed property in a number of ways. He used a fictitious student as an example of how money might end up as unclaimed.

“A student comes here to Pittsburg and pays their utility deposit, moves away and they can’t find them and they’re owed $19.87. So, before unclaimed property, those companies would eventually just keep those dollars. It was determined that it may not be in the best interest of letting those entities just keep those dollars. Let’s see if there’s any way we can have an incentive to return them. So, the law went to the point of just saying pay those out to the state and then the state can work indefinitely chasing those people down to return those dollars.”

There are other ways, as well. He noted one from what he believes was a profit-sharing plan at a company that went bankrupt and said there are a lot of insurance payments or refunds – checks that aren’t cashed or don’t reach the intended recipient.

Statewide, Johnson said, there is about $680 million in unclaimed property, which the state invests and benefits from the interest while the search goes on for the owner.

Johnson said a small number of large payouts pushes the average amount returned to about $630, but a typical sum is closer to $100.

It is easy for citizens to see whether they or someone they know may have unclaimed property held by the state by going to missingmoney.ks.gov.

“Search for whatever your name or entity that is and at that point you just hit ‘claim,’ and then you go through the process to file a claim.”

He urges citizens check the unclaimed property list every year, as funds come into it continually.

Johnson said there are many scams that he wants potential claimants to think about, which is why claimants need to verify that they are on the dot gov (.gov) site.

Johnson said the work to get unclaimed property into the hands of its owners or their heirs is never ending.

“It went on before me. It continues to come in faster than we send it out,” Johnson said. “I fear it’s going to come in even faster as we go forward,” noting that banking has moved online at a rapid pace. “I fear that those will be easier to get disconnected from the owners then when I literally went to the bank.”