State needs more effort on unclaimed funds
State Treasurer Denise Nappier’s defense of the state’s unclaimed property program is ridiculous.
Her claim that “the Treasury has aggressively worked to notify rightful owners” is misleading.
The state’s inadequate efforts to publicize the program should not be confused with notifying known individual owners.
If the state has money belonging to you and knows your name and address, the state neither pays you nor notifies you automatically.
The state instead waits for you to find and claim your money, because the state treats it as “revenue” and spends it.
However, if you find a lost wallet, you are legally and ethically obligated to return it. If you do as the state does, deposit the money in your bank account and merely advertise your find in a newspaper or on a website like Craigslist, despite already having the owner’s ID, that’s larceny.
The state unethically places the burden on owners to recover lost money, but the state should instead have the burden to return it, as any holder of lost property does.
Nappier is correct that “the true measure of the success of these efforts lies in the numbers.”
In the last four fiscal years, the state has returned only 41 percent of the money collected, making the program a cash cow for the state.
And some of that unreturned money finances campaigns, including $1.5 million for Nappier’s last two campaigns, an obvious conflict of interest. Nappier calls CTBigList.com “user-friendly.” That’s laughable. She should try to find the city of Hartford’s lost money — there is much.
CTBigList.com doesn’t even show properties valued at $50 or less. The state hides those and doesn’t disclose the grand total of all unclaimed money, which approaches $1 billion. Connecticut’s unclaimed property program serves some. But it also huts many. That must stop.
Ron Lizzi Bethany