Treasurer trying to find owners of dated bonds

By Alan Gathright, Rocky Mountain News (Contact)

Friday, March 7, 2008

Are you missing a bundle of money?

State Treasurer Cary Kennedy is looking for you.

It's part of the treasurer's job - dubbed the "Great Colorado Payback" - to reunite Coloradans with their wayward bank deposits, safe deposit box treasure, uncashed paychecks and expired gift cards.

"Last year we in treasury returned $16 million to the people of Colorado," she said.

Now, Kennedy is gunning to return even bigger bucks.

Her new crusade is to get Congress to help the feds return almost $16 billion in unredeemed U.S. Savings Bonds to 35 million Americans. That includes $170 million worth of bonds bought by Coloradans.

"We really encourage the people of Colorado to go into their attics, go into their grandmothers' basements, dig through those old shoe boxes that are stuffed with papers and see if they can find the (savings bonds) certificates," she said.

A mature $25 bond is now valued at $200. A mature $50 bond is worth $400.

They can be cashed at most banks or via the U.S. Treasury Department.

The problem: If you bought bonds before 1974 and don't have the certificate or the serial number, there's no way to redeem them. That's because the records are kept on 600,000 rolls of microfilm in a U.S. Treasury building basement that can't be electronically searched.

So, Kennedy is traveling to Washington, D.C., next week to encourage the Colorado congressional delegation to back federal legislation for "Operation Rightful Owner," a project to convert the microfilm into a searchable computer database.

This will allow Americans to go their state treasurer Web site and punch in their name to cash in on their old savings bonds.

gathrighta@RockyMountainNews.com or 303-954-5486

Learn more

Check out the State Treasurer's Unclaimed Property database Web site, GreatCoPayback.com or call toll-free at 1-800-825-2111.

* Read more legislative coverage on 26.