KINGSTON >> State Comptroller Thomas DiNapoli does at least one thing that makes people happy, he said Wednesday.
He hands out checks.
“It’s the only thing I do that puts a smile on people’s faces,” DiNapoli said at the Ulster County Regional Chamber of Commerce’s monthly breakfast meeting at the Best Western Plus hotel. “I do an audit, and everybody gets mad at me. I do this, everybody says, ‘Oh, what a nice guy. He is giving our money back.'”
DiNapoli was talking about his office returning unclaimed funds to New Yorkers, and he urged everyone to see if they’re owned money by going to the website www.osc.state.ny.us/ouf.
DiNapoli said his staff checked the site before he came to Kingston and found the Chamber of Commerce itself was owed $80. So he handed chamber President Ward Todd a check for the amount.
“It will help you pay for breakfast,” the comptroller said, drawing laughter from the crowd.
The state is sitting on some $13 billion in unclaimed funds, and DiNapoli most of the individual amounts owed range from $50 to $100.
But some are bigger, he said, noting the former Benedictine Hospital in Kingston (now the Mary’s Avenue Campus of HealthAlliance of the Hudson Valley) was owed $6,929.25. So he handed over another check, this one to HealthAlliance Marketing Director Lynn Nichols.
DiNapoli said it was likely that at least “a table and a half” of attendees at Wednesday’s breakfast were entitled to unclaimed funds, some dating back “decades.”
DiNapoli also spoke about the state’s economy, job gains and losses, loan initiatives for municipalities, the state pension fund, sales tax collections, the successes and failures of tax break programs, New York’s high debt and Wall Street.
But it was the mention of $13 billion in unclaimed money that drew a collective “whoa” from the crowd.
“No, it’s not sitting in a chest under my desk,” DiNapoli joked. Rather, he said, the money is an accumulation of inactive bank accounts, health insurance checks that didn’t get cashed, uncollected life insurance and investments people just forgot about, among other things.
“It is money that you got separated from,” he said.
“When you to the website at 2 in the morning I want you to put in your name, your businesses name, your church, your synagogue name, union, not-for-profit,” DiNapoli said. “Put in your relatives’ names. It could even be a deceased parent. … You would be amazed.”
