Ohioans are rushing to collect unclaimed funds. But how do you know if you’re owed money?
On Cincinnati Edition, we discuss how to check for unclaimed funds.
Plus, Ohio’s sports stadiums want a cut of that money too. We discuss the court battle over using those dollars for sports facilities.
Guests:
- Karen Kasler, bureau chief, Ohio Public Media Statehouse News Bureau
- Megan Lyons, financial planner, Foster and Motley
A full transcript of this conversation is below.
Beginning at noon, call 513-419-7100 or email talk@wvxu.org to have your voice heard on this topic. You can catch a recorded replay at 8 p.m.
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This episode was transcribed using a combination of AI speech recognition and human editors and has been lightly edited for clarity. It may contain errors. Please check the corresponding audio before quoting in print.
Could Ohio be holding on to money that belongs to you? The state has hundreds of millions of dollars in unclaimed funds, and a plan to start giving some of that away to help fund sports facilities. This is Cincinnati Edition on WVXU I'm Lucy May. Joining me now to discuss the state's plans and how to figure out if you have unclaimed funds are Ohio Public Media State House news bureau chief, Karen Kasler, welcome back, Karen, and Foster and Motley financial planner, Megan Lyons, thanks for being here. Karen, exactly how much money does the state have an unclaimed funds?
Karen: Well, I think the total right now, according to the state's unclaimed funds website, is about $4.8 billion and that's going back years and years and years. What's interesting about that money is that it does not earn interest. The state is not collecting interest on that. It's just holding that money for people who have not yet claimed those funds.
Where does this money come from?
Karen: Well, in 2024 fiscal year, 2024 there was more than half a billion dollars. Five hundred and 28 million dollars that came into the unclaimed funds pot, so to speak, and it paid out that same year, $149 million and they pay out to people who have unclaimed funds because of old bank accounts, insurance policies that haven't paid off all sorts of deposits that you might have left at utilities or other places. So that's where all those funds go when the business, the bank account, whatever, can't find you, or is that you're out of touch, and that's where they send the money there, so it can be held for you to come and collect later.
Megan, is this something as a financial planner, you you tell your clients about, like, don't leave that money sitting there.
Megan: Actually, it is something that we bring up periodically, especially if we know that somebody has gone through a lot of change in their life. Recently, they moved states. They moved to a new house. Sometimes checks go missing when you were expecting them. For example, 401, K rollover. That can be a big one. That could be very large, yes, and usually, the bigger the amount, the more likely we chase it down and find it sooner, before it hits unclaimed funds. But it is shocking, the amount of dollars you might find out there for a client or for yourself.
Do either of you have any idea what the average amount for someone to have in unclaimed funds is? I mean, it seems like it can be quite a range, a little bit or a whole lot.
Karen: Yeah, absolutely. When I spoke to the unclaimed funds folks, I got a written statement from them saying the average claim is $567.
Megan: I could at least back that up anecdotally by saying my personal claims that I, I do, I do have some out there ranged from I had a couple in the 200 ish dollar range, and I had one that was over $800.
Oh my gosh, that's real money.
Megan: Yeah, it's real money that I've attempted to chase down, but we can get to that.
Yeah. Well, Karen, Ohio has seen a lot more interest in these funds in recent months. I kind of teased why that is. But explain why. Why are people getting more interested in these unclaimed funds?
Karen: The unclaimed funds fund, part of that was set aside in the state budget to create a fund to help sports and cultural facilities that want money from the state to get that money. And you know, a lot of this was triggered by the $600 million that the state wanted to offer up to the Cleveland Browns for their dome stadium project in Brook Park. And so at first, Governor Mike DeWine had suggested that that money should come from an increase in the tax on sports gambling operators, but Republicans in the Ohio House said they didn't want to do that, so they looked at the unclaimed funds as being a source of money that is currently untapped and could be used. And so what the budget did was create this fund and engineer the transfer of a billion dollars from those unclaimed funds. So basically, funds that are older than from 2016 have those transferred over a billion dollars in that fund, $600 million of that would go to the Browns project in Brook Park, and then the rest the $400 million that remain would be available for sports teams and organizations to ask for, to ask the state for. And so the the application process went forward earlier this year, and it was managed by the Office of Budget and Management, looking at what sports operations we're hoping to get from that unclaimed funds pot, even though, right now it doesn't exist, because there is a legal hold on the transfer because of court challenges.
Okay, and we will get into that. We're talking about unclaimed funds in Ohio, the state's plans for the money and how to figure out if any of it belongs to you. Karen, at this point, the state hasn't transferred any of that money to the Cleveland Browns or for the team's new stadium?
Karen: Yes, because there is litigation both in state and federal court. In federal court, the judge said the transfer could go forward, because there was a way to get that money back, but he said the case could also continue, and this was a lawsuit filed by two former Democratic state lawmakers, Jeffrey Crossman and Mark Dan, who also was the former attorney general of Ohio. And then so that was the last decision in federal court. But then in state court, a Franklin County judge ruled that the transfer cannot go forward until the case moves. So right now, everything's on a legal hold. So the fund exists, but right now, there's no money in it.
Okay, well, we'll get into some more details about the lawsuit, but Megan first, if people want to figure out if they have unclaimed funds, if they want to be like you and find hundreds of dollars, it's just like a windfall, what should they do?
Megan: Yeah, your simplest option is to go to leave a couple options. If you can remember nothing else from this conversation, you can go to missing money.com that's an aggregator tool that will cross state lines and even some Canadian provinces to help find money that might be yours. If you're an Ohio resident and you've never lived anywhere else, you can go to unclaimed funds.ohio.gov. And it's really a pretty foolproof, very streamlined process. I can tell you, they've improved it in the last five plus years since I last looked where you input your name, your you know, phone number, email address, and they kind of walk you through the claims process. If you do identify that you have something sitting out there.
I'll tell you, I put my name in yesterday, and I was amazed at how many Lucy Mays, or versions of Lucy Mays there are in Ohio. Tragically, none of them were me. So nothing for Lucy But Megan. What does it take to get the money, if you do have unclaimed funds, is it a big hassle?
Megan: Oh, that's a good question. I would say it's very dependent on the claim itself, if it is worth the dollars. And by that, I mean it gives you an idea of the range that you might be receiving as a claim. So zero to $10. 10 to 50, 50 to 100 and 100 plus. That's a lot of that's a lot different, right? And there's even some that I think could say 1000 plus. So the first step is, do you want to claim the $5 or do you want to consider that maybe a donation to Ohio's economic development? If you do think it is worthwhile, they have a button you click Claim, you've put in some more information that will link you to the claim and how they've streamlined This is in years past, it was pretty much just go print a form, manually fill it out, scan it back in all of the difficulty there they have now auto generated forms so you put in the information. It emails you a link to the email you provide, it comes up with a PDF form that has all the pertinent information, and in that form has a list of the documentation you might require to prove your identity and your ownership of the funds. That's where the hassle might come in. I can tell you there's going to be complications if it's funds for, for example, a deceased person, if you're closing in a state, or if there are co owners for the funds. So there's going to be some that are simple and some that are more complicated.
Karen: I can back up the whole idea of trying to claim funds for a deceased person, because I there were a couple that I thought might be my late husband, and trying to get those claimed was was very difficult. I have not yet had success, so I will keep trying.
That's so tough, too, especially when you're a grieving person, to have to jump through a bunch of hoops and Yeah, well, we have a caller on the line. Here's David. David, thanks so much for calling. What's your question or comment?
Caller: My question or comment. Now I know this personally, my wife, she has made a claim with the funds, she has been cleared that it is her money. Now they're telling her she needs to they're having her wait almost a year before they give her money. Why is that?
That's a good question. Karen, do you have any idea? Have you heard anything about that?
Karen: Like you mentioned earlier, there's been a flood of requests for people to get their unclaimed funds because of all the attention that was paid. To the setting up of the fund for the sports and cultural facilities fund. Sorry, using that word a lot here, but so they're kind of backlogged. I don't know if that's the reason, but they have advised, and it says right on the front page, that it's supposed to take about 120 days, but it may take longer as they're trying to move through these stacks and stacks of requests that have come in, because you've got a lot of people who have suddenly realized, oh, this fund does exist. I'm going to go look for my name, and then they find out that they are in there. So it's, I don't know exactly if that's the reason. I'd like to know more about that, but that's what they've been telling us.
Have you heard about any delays?
Megan: I've not heard of any, but I can tell you that as I went to reopen a claim that I had kind of pursued almost 10 years ago now, I needed further information. Emailed them, and I'm still waiting on a reply a couple weeks later.
Okay, well, thanks for that call, David. I'm sorry that your wife's been told she has to wait so long, but I really appreciate your listening and bringing that point to our attention. We also got an email from Steve in Oakley. Steve writes, why is it such a struggle in this state to expect professional teams to pay for their own stadiums? They seem to have the resources and leverage in the form of borrowing, borrowing power to build their own. They always seem attracted to taxpayers money, even from missing money, funds, even though it is still others money. I don't know, that seems like almost a rhetorical question. I don't know if you have any thoughts about that. Karen, was that something that lawmakers debated during this whole, you know, while they were considering whether to use this money to help these these facilities?
Karen: Absolutely, because there were a lot of questions about, why should the Browns get $600 million from the state of Ohio for their own dome stadium project when the owner of the Browns is a billionaire? But the team, the Haslam Sports Group, which manages the Browns. It's connected to Jimmy Haslam, who owns the Browns. Jimmy and Dee Haslam own the Browns. They put together a presentation that was brought to a House committee showing that, by their estimations, this development will actually create economic growth for the region where they want to put it. So they're moving it out of Cleveland and moving into it into a suburb, but they say that the state, it would be a good investment for the state. These are grants that $600 million is Grant is supposed to be paid back. But the argument had long been that this is going to be something that's going to generate economic development and bring in money and that sort of thing. The Haslam Sports Group had claimed things like that, this was a dome stadium that was going to bring in so many more concerts and other things than any other in the Midwest. And there were some real questions that were asked by the Office of Budget and Management and by some Democrats in the House saying, we don't necessarily believe the numbers that you're telling us, but Republicans who lead the House and Senate, they believe these numbers. They feel like this is a good investment for the state, and again, that $600 million does come back. There is a schedule by on which the Haslams need to pay that back.
We do have a caller on the line. Hi Mary Jo, thanks for calling. What's your question?
Caller: Well, my sister and I were going through the through these the when they publish it in the enquire several years back, and we saw our mother's name, and we started the process, gave up on the process, and we're talking $30,000 here. Oh my goodness, and yeah, and then worked. My sister, when she was in town visiting, spoke with an old attorney friend, and he said we would have to reopen probate. And my mother's been gone 16 or 17 years now. Oh, my God. And then we also have to prove where her children, wow. It gets confusing, because I've been married 55 years. So you know, I've had a name change for a very long time.
Sure, yeah, well, let me put you on hold Mary Jo. Megan, do you have any thoughts for Mary Jo? I mean, is that kind of what you have to go through reopen probate in cases like this?
Megan: I'm not sure if it's exactly the same, and I think obviously you need to defer to an attorney on this. I did some research and saw that if there is an issue where maybe your estate never went through probate, for example, you could get a certain affidavit from the court to kind of, I'm going to call it temporarily, or for this narrow channel of an investigation, work through that process on the behalf of a deceased person. So I don't have exactly the right language for you, but I do think there might be a way without a full reopening, especially since she's been gone for so long.
Yeah, well gosh, Mary Jo, best of luck with that. I hope you and your sister are able to claim those unclaimed funds. Karen, have you been hearing any other stories like that? I mean, from people who say, Hey, this is 1000s of dollars. I don't necessarily want it going to sports, sports facilities, but it's having trouble getting it.
Karen: Yeah, absolutely. We've gotten some people who have reported to us that they've had some issues. There was a story that my colleague Joe Ingles wrote last year featuring a woman from Shaker Heights who's trying to track down $377 and she said she never worked so hard for $377 in her life, because she had to move all of these things around in terms of finding documentation and that sort of stuff. And there has been a lot of complaining from people who have been trying to get access to unclaimed funds that the state makes it difficult. Now there have been some changes to try to make it a little bit easier, but some of you have pointed out that in other states, the state notifies you that you have unclaimed funds, rather than you going to search for them. So there have been a lot of complaints about the difficulty in navigating the system, especially when you're trying to claim for someone who's deceased, or an old fund, and you're trying to prove where you used to live, and you got a very common name. I mean, my, my married name, is pretty common. And when I search there, there's the hundreds of names that turn up that are like mine. So it can be difficult.
Megan: I also would add, if you are somebody who has changed your name, which is, let's be honest, a lot of women you're already kind of starting a step behind. You should just be able to submit a marriage certificate, even if that marriage did happen 30 plus years ago. So that should at least clear that little piece. But one of the complicating factors I personally ran into was I moved a lot for the first 10ish years post, well, post high school even. And you know, how do I go find proof of residency at this place when I was there for nine months or a year when I was 22. I'm not keeping that good a record even in my in my career. So it is something. I think there is a weight to be given to for the dollars you're receiving. How much time are you really putting in? And kind of work out maybe what your dollar per hour might be?
Yeah, Karen, can you talk a little bit more about the argument that these lawsuits are making? I mean, why are these lawsuits saying, you know, that this money shouldn't go to sports facilities?
Karen: Well, the process by which the state is taking these funds from unclaimed funds and creating this new fund is called escheatment. And the two Democratic former lawmakers who have filed the lawsuit, Jeffrey Crossman and Mark Dan, have said that this is not constitutional. They don't believe this achievement process is right, because these are funds that are owned by other people. They're owned by Ohioans or people from out of state, and they're not the states to use in this way. And so those claims have at least gotten some traction in federal court, where the judge did allow the transfer to go forward, but said the case could also continue, but in state court as well, where the judge said the transfer can't happen. And so we're still waiting to hear from those judges on whether they are buying these this argument. I can imagine this is a case that's going to go on for a while, and that, of course, brings up the question of, if it goes on for a while, what about not only the Cleveland Browns project, but also the other entities that have asked for a share of that $400 million what happens to those?
In the lawsuit do they spell out, have any other states done this use these funds in ways like this?
Karen: I honestly don't know, but I think that that was looked at by Republican lawmakers as a way to do what they wanted to do, which was to provide some funding for the brown stadium, as well as for other sports facilities, because they knew the requests would come in from other sports facilities and other teams, but not to raise taxes, because, again, Governor Mike DeWine had wanted to raise the tax on sports gambling operators. He said most of those were out of state, and this would be an easy way to raise money. He doesn't like sports gambling anyway, so there's always that element of it, but lawmakers didn't want to do that.
Why didn't lawmakers want to do that?
Karen: They don't like to raise taxes. The Republicans are in the super majority in the House and Senate, and they viewed this as a tax increase, and so they wanted to find other ways. They were trying to cut income taxes in the budget, which they did, essentially, and they didn't want to raise taxes on anything else.
Karen, how many other entities have applied for that $400 million that you talked about? And are those requests big? I mean, I know the Cincinnati Bengals are hoping to get a piece of that, right?
Karen: Yes, as a matter of fact, they are looking at the, the biggest piece, when I was looking at the the actual dollar figures, I think they're close to, like 260 some billion dollars that they are hoping to get out of, or million dollars out of this fund. So there were 22 sports operations that asked for funding from that $400 million the total was 689 million so they're not going to all get what they want. But yeah, the Bengals, I'm sorry, $234 million but you also had FC Cincinnati that was hoping for $136 million and you know, virtually every sports team, professional sports team in Ohio asked for some of that $400 million now the state has come back and said some of these requests are no good. Eight of them they threw out. One of them was from Springfield, Massachusetts. But you know you had a range of that huge range there for pay core stadium, then all the way down to two $10,000 requests, which I believe both were thrown out.
Okay, Megan, I know you did a lot of research before this discussion, did have you seen has Ohio's law changed regarding how much time people have to claim their unclaimed funds, because it sounds like a lot of this money has been sitting around for a long time.
Megan: Yes, yes, they actually have now placed a restriction. There's a 10 year kind of rolling period now. So if you had claims that were submitted to the bureau or the Ohio Department of Commerce prior to 2016 Jan 1, 2016, you still have 10 years. So, in essence, pardon me, you have until 2036 okay. And if it was from now, essentially, yeah. And if you were after January 1 2016, you still have till 2036 but let's say, in a year, you know, funds are submitted to the department, then you would have 10 years from then. So they are putting a little bit of a little bit of a limit on this, so maybe we're not accruing the giant bucket of unclaimed funds that currently exist, but it gave me at least some reassurance that I still had some time to go sort my own claims out, because I had started this again 10 years ago and promptly forgotten about them when it got a little hairy. Right? So anyone who still has those old funds, they should go out take a look and try to get them.
Yeah, it doesn't sound like it's always easy, though, to get those, especially, as you said, if you're dealing with a deceased family member. So Karen, what are you going to be watching for with this? I mean, I imagine, are you still checking this to see if you've got any other unclaimed funds you can, you can get.
Karen: I mean, I got a payment for $5.49 so, you know, I felt like I was a real winner there.
Diet soda money Karen.
Karen: Right, absolutely. You can't turn your nose up at that, but it's like that whole argument of, is it really worth the dollar figures? I mean, I think the three claims I'm trying to make on my late husband's name are like $82 okay, do I mean $82 is enough money to be interested, but how much time is it going to take me to to do all the things they want me to do to get that money?
Megan: And I just want to add for anyone out there who doesn't remember the websites I threw out and just goes and Googles, you should not be charged anything for finding these funds, and there are websites out there that will direct you that way. So if you see any kind of fees raised red flag, abort, go look for the right good advice.
Well, I've been talking with Ohio Public Media State House news bureau chief, Karen Kasler and Foster and Motley financial planner, Megan Lyons, thank you both so much for your time today.