$21,000 In City Money Found

Sunday I reported on a couple of thousand dollars owed to Mayor Villaraigosa and his ex-wife Corina which is sitting in an unclaimed property account at the office of State Controller John Chiang.

You won't believe who and what has money waiting for them at the Controller's office. click read more to dig deeper!



The Unclaimed Property Bureau receives funds that banks, companies, insurance companies, utilities have on the books for various individuals or businesses but for some reason or another - i.e. a check was never cashed, a refund was never claimed, etc. - the individual to whom the money is owned has not been found. It then becomes the State's job to track these people down and give them their money. If this task is impossible, after three years the State claims the money for the general fund.

Recently, there has been controversy regarding the length to the which the state was going to track down the rightful owners of these funds. Controller Chiang has proposed a series of reforms.

One wonders how hard however it is to find well known figures such as the Villaraigosas, singer Barbra Streisand, actor/director Danny DeVito and his wife actress Rhea Pearlman, recording artist and father of Nichole Lionel Richie, developer and Maxine Waters fan Rick Caruso, sitcom star and comedians Jerry Seinfeld and Ray Romano and even a few past Los Angeles Mayors such as Richard Riordan and the REAL old, dead Republican Sam Yorty. Other than Yorty, I think the rest of these people should be fairly easy to find.

But as the Daily News' Harrison Shepard reports the Bureau has had a hard time finding even government agencies that are owed funds including - amazingly - itself! Its been removed since but for a while the Bureau listed money it was holding owed to the Bureau.

So it's no surprise that the Bureau is holding nearly $21,000 from various sources owed to the City of Los Angeles. Indeed, its no surprise that the State couldn't find the city nor that the City can't keeps its books straight enough to not collect on money it is owed.

Certainly $21,000 is a drop in the bucket compared to the billion dollar plus City Budget. But this raises questions as to the accuracy of the City's accounting, particularly at a need when needs are greater and resources are scant.