Columns Leads to Unexpected Windfall
My Sunday morning routine rarely varies. After getting caffeinated, I sit down to finish the Capital Highlights column I write for subscribers through the Texas Press Association. About 100 newspapers, mainly weeklies and twice-weeklies in small towns across the state, publish the column. Throughout the week, I check more than three dozen state agencies and elected officials to whom I have subscribed to get their news releases, comb the state’s metro newspaper websites, as well as several nonprofit news sites, looking for items that might be of interest to readers. I save the links to those stories and generally write a rough draft on Friday or Saturday. It is more aggregation than reporting. I rarely call or email anyone and am scrupulous about giving credit to the original source. Then on Sunday morning, I update where needed and send it to TPA to be edited, by a couple of colleagues I have known for decades.
I have had this paying gig for a little more than a year and thoroughly enjoy it. It is straight journalism, and it fills a needed space for small newspapers that can’t afford to pay for wire services. I work hard to keep my opinion out of the column, striving to just present the facts as best I understand them, whether it’s the latest pandemic numbers or the current drought situation.
Last Sunday, I realized I needed an additional short item to reach the minimum word count on the column. I combed through the emails and found a short item on webinars offered to government agencies, financial institutions and other entities that might be holding money that rightfully belongs to someone else. For nearly 50 years, the state of Texas has required banks, businesses and governmental entities to report any unclaimed personal property to the state, which has returned more than $3 billion to the rightful owners, according to the claimittexas.org website.
Examples of unclaimed property include paychecks, dividends, stocks, utility deposits, bank accounts, insurance proceeds, oil and gas royalty payments, and overpayments on utiliti
es, insurance, and other bills. Real estate or motor vehicles don’t qualify, so don’t get your hopes up about nabbing a new ride.
A recent report in the San Antonio Express News said the state is holding more than $7 billion and other valuables through its unclaimed property program. Last year, it returned $285 million, representing more than 538,000 properties. A surprising number of people are owed money and don’t know it.
Including me.
For grins, I went to claimittexas.org and typed my name in the search bar. Bam! I am owed $156 and had no idea. After finishing my column and sending it along for editing, I filled out the form online to retrieve my loot. Almost immediately I received a form in my email inbox to print and fill out. The state wisely requires a copy of one’s driver’s license and Social Security card as well. I slapped a stamp on an envelope and stuck it in the mailbox, something I rarely do these days, paying virtually everything electronically. At some point in the next few months when the check arrives, my Beautiful Mystery Companion and I will enjoy a nice dinner, courtesy of the state of Texas keeping up with who owed me money. Sweet.
I decided to become a digital Santa Claus for my family and friends, and searched claimittexas.org for everybody I could think of, sending out texts when I found their names, urging them to seek their money. Sometimes it was only $30, but others were owed several hundred dollars.
All were well pleased to learn the news on that sunny Sunday afternoon.
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