Treasury highlights $80M returned through Great Colorado Payback, seeks staff for unclaimed property processing

Colorado State Treasurer Dave Young summarized the Treasury Department's recent results and budget request in a presentation to the joint Smart Act hearing.

Young highlighted the Great Colorado Payback program, saying it had returned roughly $80,000,000 through 86,000 claims last fiscal year and that the Unclaimed Property Division is on track to resolve about 100,000 individual claims this fiscal year. "The Great Colorado payback has returned $80,000,000 through 86,000 claims," Young said, and the division requested cash-funded spending for three additional FTE, expanded mailings and software to process the rising volume of claims and holders reporting unclaimed funds.

On retirement access, Young said the Colorado Secure Savings Program has enrolled more than 98,000 savers and nearly 18,000 businesses, with savers holding about $190,000,000 in assets. He framed the program as a long-term tool to improve retirement security across the state and noted that expanding an interstate partnership has helped lower plan fees for participants.

Treasury further described an increase in transaction volume (about 20% since fiscal 2023) and reported $677,000,000 in income earned across managed funds. The department said it eliminated general-fund requests for the coming session and is proposing a modest cash-funded request of $948,858 to sustain essential operations, citing inflation, software and cybersecurity cost increases.

Treasury requested approval to add accounting and operational staff to address audit findings, support debt-management modernization and better manage statewide banking operations. The department said the proposed staffing and tools are intended to reduce audit and fraud risk and accelerate returning money to rightful owners.