We don’t often see government programs that actually work, but here’s one that seems to, from what I can see: the unclaimed property tool run by Illinois Treasurer Michael Frerich’s office.
Common types of unclaimed property according to that office, includes checking and savings accounts, uncashed wage and payroll checks, uncashed stock dividends and stock certificates, insurance payments, utility deposits, customer deposits, accounts payable, credit balances, refund checks, money orders, traveler’s checks, mineral proceeds, court deposits, uncashed death benefit checks and life insurance proceeds.
My wife ran it for us and a few relatives and it indeed recovered a few things, mostly small, like refund checks that may have been overlooked. For descendants of deceased, elderly people, however, bigger items are more often found, such as forgotten accounts.
**********
In other news pertinent to the treasurer’s office, the earnings of money held there is now very significant thanks to higher interest rates. The treasurer invests state-owned cash and money owned by certain local Illinois governments. They typically total about what the balance is today — over $30 billion. About $20 billion of that is the state’s and $10 billion is the local governments’.
The treasurer’s site currently says the state money is invested for an average maturity just under a year, currently yielding about 3.5%.
That should come to over a billion dollars of annual earnings for taxpayers.
We’ve written in the past to question why the state needs to keep such a large, persistent cash balance. We found no good answers. That’s a matter for the General Assembly, not the treasurer.
Expect no retraction or apology. This what they do.
The state’s existing buyout program for its own pensions is the precedent for Chicago, which should be a warning: Look out for similar exaggerated claims and shoddy analysis.
YES, shocker–Illinois gov works for once!!, They did a great job for us. We got back small $ but was very easy.
All any Illinoisan wants is government that works at a reasonable price. Isn’t that equity?
This system is proof that cross-reference database matching asset entitlements to identifying data (name, address, SSN) is a trivial program to accomplish. What is State of Illinois doing to recover billions of felony theft Covid unemployment public funds, and PPP grants? Public workers were paid in full throughout Covid. Yet on information and belief, many received escalated unemployment benefits also. This is trivial to discover, and easy to claw back. Similarly, PPP “loans” were supposed to collect SSNs of “employees ” of business applicants. Trivial to discover this felony theft. Are public employees found guilty of felony still eligible for… Read more »
Don’t get your hopes up. As pension debts keep increasing, this program will go away and the state will keep this money and use it for pensions. Sounds illegal, fraudulent heartless? Not really. If you know Illinois you know this is a real possibility. The state is in debt way past its eyeballs and won’t stop spending.
It’s a valuable service. Everyone should check their names as well as those of neighbors, friends and family.
This isnt anything new as there was a previous program called “CASH DASH” that helped locate forgotten assets. I used it 10 yrs ago to claim almost $1000 in insurance dividends of my mother who passed away in 2001. Same program, different name. I just checked today again and amazingly there is another unclaimed asset of my mother’s, under $100, so I filed a claim on that. Anybody reading this article should do a search as you may be surprised at the outcome.
Update. $9.55 cents unclaimed. Claiming is a bit more complicated as there are downloads/uploads of documents, printing out the proper claim forms, notary endorsements in some cases over a certain dollar amount etc. For $9.55 I’ll let it go as it’s not worth doing all the hoop jumping.
Ain;t that the truth. I finally just gave up on a couple of mine.
Even worse if submitting claim for dead relative. Death certificates, trust documents, proof of legal trustee of estate, all needing to be notarized, etc. In our case, for two $1.56 dividend checks, forget it, costed more to submit than the return.
Update: An unclaimed hospital rebate of $9.55. Lots of forms to download, docs to upload or mail so I think I’m not going after it.