Luzerne County and its departments have 71 untapped claims on money owed to them, according to a state Treasury Department database.
The database lists money from abandoned bank accounts and uncashed checks that remain in the department’s custody until it is claimed by the owners or their heirs.
Kingston Township resident Bill Owens pointed out the revenue source during last week’s county council budget hearing, saying he was researching his unclaimed property and noticed dozens of entries for the county and other area municipalities, including his own.
“There’s a lot of money laying around that nobody’s even bothering to ask for,” Owens told the council as it embarked on another session reviewing a proposed 2017 county budget containing a 4-percent tax hike and new $5 vehicle registration fee.
The exact amount owed to the county was not available because the claims are categorized only as under or over $100, with all at least $5.
County Chief Solicitor Romilda Crocamo said Friday her office initiated a review of the potential claims on Wednesday, the day after the budget hearing.
The county purchasing office will act on the solicitor’s office findings and submit claims to obtain all money owed to the county, said county Manager C. David Pedri. He expects to publicly announce the expected dollar amount the county will reclaim in a week or two.
“I’m not incredibly optimistic that we had an elderly aunt who passed away and left a fortune, but we will take whatever we can get,” Pedri said Friday.
The database describes many of the county’s unclaimed entries as credit balances, “accounts payable” and uncashed checks from businesses, banks and other entities. The money is owed to the county overall, the county prison and the treasurer’s, tax claim, sheriff, deeds, wills, prothonotary, assessor’s and court offices, the database says.
This isn’t the first time the subject has come up. The county obtained about $25,000 after identifying 109 credits, refunds and payments due to the county in 2012. The idea to go after the money came up that year when prior county manager Robert Lawton asked then-controller Walter Griffith if the county was entitled to unclaimed money.
Griffith found payments ranging from $2 to $12,130.47. The highest payment was a 2004 check to the county from the state budget office that was sent to the county recreation complex in Forty Fort but never made it to the county courthouse in Wilkes-Barre for unknown reasons.
Then-state treasurer Rob McCord personally traveled from Harrisburg to the courthouse to deliver the county’s $24,572.63 check to raise public awareness about the potential for residents, local governments, nonprofits and emergency service organizations to obtain unclaimed funds.
Lawton had pledged to search for the funds annually, but those plans were not carried out because some of the current unclaimed items owed to the county were added to the state database from 2013 to 2015, records show.
Pedri, who was appointed interim and then permanent manager this year, said he has directed the purchasing department to review the database for future potential claims at least once a year.
According to a treasury release, the department “reunited” thousands of state residents and entities with a record $136.3 million in property and money in 2015. The department said it collected a record $672.7 million in “dormant and forgotten” property last year, a 126-percent increase from 2014.
Businesses are required by law to turn over to the state any abandoned money or property after three years of inactivity or dormancy, the state said.
The state is currently seeking the owners of $2.3 billion in unclaimed property, the database says.
“Remember, we will always help you recover your property free of charge. One in 10 residents have unclaimed property waiting for them — do you?” the database says.
The database also indicates Luzerne County Community College has several unclaimed entries. The county council and administration do not oversee the college, but the council appoints community college board trustees and must provide a portion of funding to operate the institution.
One of the database entries under Luzerne County appears to be intended for another entity because it identifies the county’s location and zip code as Richboro, a community in Bucks County.
Some uncashed checks end up in the database because the addresses were incorrect, but many entries under Luzerne County contain the proper courthouse address at 200 N. River St. in Wilkes-Barre. Pedri said the administration will review all properly-addressed unclaimed items to determine why the money did not make it into the county’s coffers.
