Faced with a budget shortfall, state legislators are eyeing a very large piggy bank - the unclaimed cash of Virginia residents being held by the Treasury. About $1.7 billion dollars - that’s billion with a B - is awaiting a call from the rightful owners.
Benjamin Jarvela looks nothing like Santa Claus, but he hopes to give Virginians lots of presents this year. As spokesman for the state’s treasury, he says one in four people has a forgotten utility deposit or some other money in Richmond, waiting to be claimed.
“We see a lot of forgotten checking accounts, unpaid wages, investment dividends, uncashed checks, contents from safety deposit box.”
The state will keep that cash for claimants indefinitely. Jarvela says one payment dated back to the 1930’s.
“We will hold the money in perpetuity for either the owner or the owners’ heirs. In the case of that claim from the 30’s, it was actually a great, great grandchild stepping forward to claim on behalf of the family.”
Last year, the agency returned $45 million, but it took in another $136 million.
“We’re bringing it in quicker than we can shovel it out the door, so I would definitely recommend anyone who’s curious, head to our website - that’s www.vamoneysearch.org, type your name, run through the process. It takes you about ten minutes. Once everything checks out, you mail us some copies of your identification so we can make sure we’re talking to the right person, and we’ll send you a check in the mail. It’s that easy.”
Actually, it can be difficult if the cash has been sitting for awhile. If, for example, you were a student at VCU in 1985, living in a house in Richmond, could you prove it? Jarvela says he was able to provide the proof needed to collect, soon after taking a job with the treasury.
“I had about $30 from a cell phone that I had purchased around 2001, and I had no idea that I had been eligible for any sort of refund, but day one, here I am. I type my name in the data base, and there it was, waiting for me to come get it.”
A fair amount of unclaimed money is loaned to the state’s literacy fund each year, making many educational programs possible, and Governor McAuliffe would like to sell $250 million worth of unclaimed stock to shore up the state’s budget. He would deposit about $150 million in the teacher retirement system, which faces a substantial liability, and spend the rest on school construction. If the owner of a particular stock were to come forward later, the state says it would compensate him or her based on the value of the stock at the time it was sold by the state.
