Carbon County received just over $5,000 in unclaimed property from the state treasury recently and will put it toward maintaining its archives department.

State Treasurer Stacy Garrity visited the county to present the check for $5,038.09.

Garrity said unclaimed property can be a number of things, including dormant bank accounts, credit balances, contents of safe deposit boxes and more.

“The property returned to Carbon County included accounts payable checks, cashier’s checks, credit balances and other unclaimed items,” Garrity said.

Recorder of Deeds Donna Gentile, who spearheaded the search for the county, said that it was after a state conference that she decided to start looking.

Through her search, she found her office had nine properties that could be claimed. Gentile worked with the state and learned that 29 properties from various county offices were unclaimed and so she began the process of filling out the forms necessary to make this claim happen.

Commissioners’ Chairman Wayne Nothstein said that this money is a good thing for the county and said it would be put into the archives department to help maintain the county records.

“They are an extremely busy little office,” he said, adding that every department benefits from the funds going to archives.

Nothstein thanked Gentile and Garrity for making this possible and stressed how important it was for residents to look into claiming the property that is rightfully theirs.

Garrity is working to return more than $4.5 billion in unclaimed property to Pennsylvania residents, organizations and government agencies.

Since 2021, the treasury has returned $15.7 million to 57 local governments across the state and posted a record year for returns to residents over the last fiscal year with $274 million in unclaimed property returned.

“I always encourage every Pennsylvanian to visit our website to search to see if any money is waiting for them,” she said. “I hope everyone in Carbon County will do just that because right now, we have more than $8.7 million owed to people who live here. This is your money, not the states and I want to make sure that we get it back to you.”

For more information or to check if you have unclaimed property, visit www.patreasury.gov/unclaimedproperty.