Abandoned Property Is Good News for Deficits

California Controller John Chiang has $20 for Warren Buffett. He also has a little over a grand for Charlie Sheen. The money is part of a $6.1 billion cache of abandoned property—dormant savings accounts, store credits, forsaken royalty payments, and the like—that companies are required by law to turn over to the state after three years. The task of returning the property to its 13.1 million rightful owners, who often aren’t aware they’re owed money, falls to Chiang. “It just keeps coming in,” says Hallye Jordan, a spokeswoman for Chiang, who herself has $66.58 in abandoned property she hasn’t had time to claim.

Right now there is $33 billion in unclaimed property across the U.S., according to Kevin Johnson, a spokesman for the Lexington (Ky.)-based National Association of Unclaimed Property Administrators. States get to use the cash while it idles. In California the stray money is deposited into the general fund and used as a sort of no-interest loan to pay salaries and expenses—a cushion that has helped keep the financially troubled state afloat. North Carolina uses the interest on its $500 million for college scholarships. Ohio, with $1.4 billion, spends it on low-income housing programs.