Dormant checking and savings accounts, lost and uncashed checks, forgotten rent and utility deposits... since 1968, the State of Ohio has been required by law to hold on to those for you. Officials say they don't have enough manpower to notify the 3 and a half million companies and individuals who have money sitting with the state, so they use newspaper ads and a website.
Claudia Caterino: Okay, I'm typing in http://www.unclaimedfundstreasurehunt.ohio.gov...
Claudia Caterino is WCPN's research assistant. She's helping me track down folks like Cleveland City Councilman Joe Cimperman who might have forgotten cash just sitting with the state.
Claudia Caterino: And he has 17 dollars and 31 cents.
Joe Cimperman: What do I need, I mean, I could use some chapstick, my lips are dry.
City Councilman Joe Cimperman is owed money from Progressive insurance.
Joe Cimperman: Hmm... go to Starbucks and maybe I'll get 10 cups of coffee. I am right now literally sitting on the floor spinning, thinking 'how could I spend this money?'
In the last fiscal year, a record number of Ohioans may have asked themselves some version of that question. 43,000 companies and individuals collected $64 million. But the fund still tops a record billion dollars. State Commerce Department spokesman Dennis Ginty says there are accounts over a hundred years old.
Dennis Ginty: During the course of our lifetimes, we may move 10 or 15 times and some of us are better at informing people that we have financial relationships with that we've moved.
Ginty says the state invests some of the money, but individual accounts no longer accrue interest, thanks to a 1991 state law. A lawsuit over the interest policy is currently working its way through Hamilton County courts. Ginty says the state does occasionally tap into the money.
Dennis Ginty: Some of the funds are loaned to the Ohio Housing Finance Agency and that agency works on low and moderate income housing programs throughout Ohio.
Others owed money include former Republican Governor Bob Taft, Cleveland's sports franchises, and even convicted former congressmen Bob Ney and Jim Trafficant. The Cleveland Clinic is owed over $38,000 from various insurance, pharmaceutical and healthcare companies. The hospital says they are looking into it. And at a recent press event Akron Mayor Don Plusquellic was asked about the approximately $12 waiting for him to collect .
Don Plusquellic: I mean, God, I can't believe none of us haven't just jumped at it. (pause) I may donate it to the state, just because they need the help.
For the Statehouse News Bureau, I'm Mhari Saito.