WESTLAKE, Ohio — The Ohio Division of Unclaimed Funds is working to hire additional staff following a record-breaking year of claims that has created a seven-month backlog for people trying to receive their unclaimed money.
A spokesperson with the Division of Unclaimed Funds told News 5 that since June 2025, they've added four full-time employees, as well as 13 intermittent employees. Additionally, they are in the process of trying to hire four more full-time employees.
Last June, lawmakers directed the commerce department to pull money out of the unclaimed funds pool twice a year, starting on Jan. 1, 2026, and to put that money into a new fund for sports and cultural facility grants. The first deposit into that fund will be $1 billion, including $600 million earmarked for a new Cleveland Browns stadium in Brook Park.
For the first time, the state is setting a clock on how long people have to claim their misplaced money. Going forward, people will have a decade to file a claim. Lawmakers created a grace period of 10 years, through Jan. 1, 2036, to give people whose money initially gets taken a chance at being made whole.
Right now, a temporary restraining order is stopping the state from moving the money. A Franklin County court is weighing whether to put a longer-term hold in place while the litigation plays out.
A decision could come any day now.
On Tuesday, News 5 reported how Theresa Racz recently emailed the Division of Unclaimed Funds to follow up on her claim tied to her late father's life insurance policy, months after she submitted her mother's death certificate, her father's death certificate, her birth certificate and a copy of a driver's license.
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Earlier this week, she received the following email from an employee at the Ohio Department of Commerce saying:
Thank you for reaching out to the Division of Unclaimed Funds. I do apologize for the delay. We are currently reviewing claims that were submitted on July 28th. Your paperwork was received in October on the 16th . This process is taking longer than 120 business days due to the high volume of claims received. Please reach out to us in about 3-4 months.
Have a nice day!
After reading that email, Racz hopes the Division of Unclaimed Funds is able to speed up processing her claim and others.
"They need to make it more of a priority," she said.
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But even with more staffing, people like Jennifer Kladke-Grealis told News 5 that's just the beginning of what needs to be done.
The Buffalo Bills fan tried to claim money after the Browns stadium announcement, and showed News 5 paperwork for six claims tied to different married names and addresses over the past 15 years.
"It's just $40, C'mon man," Kladke-Grealis said.
She told News 5 she would like to see Ohio work similarly to other states, where her personal information already supplied to the state (i.e., the Department of Taxation) is shared with the Division of Unclaimed Funds to verify her identity.
"If everything matches up with an individual's social security number or a business's tax ID number, you shouldn't have to go through all this to provide proof of who you are, where you lived 15-20 years ago," Kladke-Grealis said. "For the state wanting their tax dollars immediately when you file your tax return, but it's going to take them months and months to get your $40 back, that doesn't seem fair to me."
As News 5 has previously reported, the superintendent of the Division of Unclaimed Funds told News 5 last August he'd like to see Ohio go even further by allowing unclaimed funds employees to use statewide data from other departments, such as the Ohio Department of Taxation or the BMV, to help verify information.
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"I think one of the big opportunities for us is to see what other technology there is out there to help enhance the process, whether it be AI, whether it be data sharing," Hardy said at the time. "A lot of states utilize data sharing in order to not just expedite the process, but simply cut a check. And that's one of the things that we're not equipped to do right now in Ohio because it will require a legislative change. But I could see it in our in our foreseeable future."
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He explained that in other states, unclaimed funds divisions can corroborate names and addresses tied to unclaimed money, speeding up the process and eliminating some of the slowdown that can occur with claims.
"States have gotten really creative with how they data share using data from other sources, external sources to simply verify and validate the data," he said in August 2025. "And then rather than going through a whole claims process, they look at that match and they say, 'We feel good about this, let's just cut the check and send it to him.'"
A spokesperson said the division still has about 48,000 claims in process due to "continued high interest." About half the claims paid in the past 11 months were completed in under 120 days, thanks to a new system designed to speed up processing for simpler claims.
To check your claim status, visit unclaimedfunds.ohio.gov or call 614-466-4433 or 877-644-6823.
