California is Looking to use Lost Money to Fix Budget
The lost money pile in the State of California is growing at a rapid pace and currently ranks highest in terms of unclaimed funds value. In order to mitigate this problem and reduce the deficit, officials in the State treasury are sending more than 9,000 memos every week so that the owners of these funds can take the necessary steps to claim their money.
In spite of the various steps taken to reduce this unclaimed funds pile, the unclaimed checks from various state agencies continue to add to this unaccounted money pool. Like other states, California is also taking various measures utilizing different media to reduce this deficit, but not with a lot of success.
As the economic slowdown takes its toll on the California budget, Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger has hinted at utilizing the lost money pile to tackle the problem of State budget deficit. On a national level, National Conference of State Legislatures have expressed concern that the state budget deficits are expected to exceed $55.5 billion for the fiscal year beginning on July 1, and California, because of its size, is coping with the highest budget deficit in the country.
In the previous year, the annual budget deficit for California was about $6 billion and this figure is expected to go above the $20 billion mark this fiscal year. The state governor is making a case whether the $5.7 billion unclaimed funds can be utilized towards repairing the state budget deficit.
In his “May Budget Revise”, California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger set guidelines for the state legislature to deal with the state’s budget deficit prior to the start of the next fiscal year, on July 1.
Apart from the proposed cut in the welfare programs, unemployment benefits and Food Stamp Programs, State financial machinery is actively mulling over the option of utilizing the lost or unclaimed money reservoir until the state budget gets into a good shape.
Experts and bureaucrats who are actively involved in this unclaimed funds program are supporting Governor Schwarzenegger as even after so many repeated attempts and various missing money programs, the actual owners have still not been traced.
