Treasury seeks staff boost as unclaimed property holdings surge past $1 billion

Treasurer Elizabeth Steiner, Oregon State Treasurer, and Claudia Chobano, director of trust property at the Oregon State Treasury, told the General Government Subcommittee on April 2 that unclaimed property receipts and caseloads have risen sharply since the program moved to Treasury in 2021.

"Unclaimed property really refers to intangible assets, but occasionally we also receive safety deposit boxes from banks," Trust Property Director Claudia Chobano said. She told the committee the trust property and estates administration programs now hold about $1 billion in assets and that in fall 2024 the office received $210 million in reported unclaimed property.

The increase has strained staff capacity and slowed turnaround on claim approvals, the directors said. Chobano asked the committee to approve Policy Option Package (POP) 107, a request for 11 positions and roughly $2.9 million for the 2025–27 biennium to expand audit, fraud-detection and claims-processing capacity. Deputy Treasurer George Naughton told members the package would be…