Viewpoint: North Dakota has your money. It just won't let you know

Contributed Opinion by Mark Lewyn Today at 11:33 AM Listen Comments Share Share this article Letters To The Editor Letters To The Editor Ideas and conclusions submitted and held solely by readers, and do not reflect opinions of Forum Communications. The Trust Project What is this? Imagine discovering that North Dakota is holding money belonging to your elderly mother, your church, your small business or your local school. There's just one problem: The state won't tell you exactly how much. ADVERTISEMENT It could be $25. It could be $25,000. It could be $250,000. North Dakota knows. It just won't tell. Welcome to government secrecy at its most absurd, where officials entrusted with returning your money refuse to reveal what it's worth. North Dakota reportedly holds approximately $140 million to $150 million in unclaimed property, including forgotten bank accounts, uncashed checks and insurance proceeds. This isn't government money. It belongs to people and organizations that have lost track of it. When I requested the state's complete unclaimed-property database on Oct. 28, including exact dollar amounts, officials agreed to provide names, addresses, reporting institutions and property descriptions. But exact amounts? Absolutely not. Instead, North Dakota offers something almost comically unhelpful: a hint. Its public database uses vague labels such as "LESS THAN $100 or “GREATER THAN $2,500.” ADVERTISEMENT A guessing game, courtesy of your state government. To learn the actual amount, owners may have to navigate the claims process and prove ownership. But why would someone jump through those hoops without knowing whether the reward is $20 or $20,000? It's like a bank refusing to disclose your balance until you complete a pile of paperwork. Here's where things get interesting. A state official cited North Dakota Century Code § 44-04-18.25, which classifies individual property values as "exempt" records. But exempt doesn't mean confidential. Under § 44-04-17.1(5), exempt records may be released at the government's discretion. Read that again. North Dakota can disclose those amounts. It chooses not to. And there's another dimension to this secrecy that deserves attention. North Dakota actually benefits financially when your money remains unclaimed. ADVERTISEMENT Under North Dakota Century Code § 47-30.2-46, unclaimed funds are deposited into the Common Schools Trust Fund, where they can be invested to support public education while remaining available to satisfy legitimate claims. Think about that. The longer your money remains unclaimed, the longer it can remain invested in a state fund. Vague dollar ranges. Extra paperwork. People who abandon claims because they don't know whether the amount justifies the effort. Every unnecessary obstacle risks keeping money in government custody longer. The result is a troubling conflict: The government responsible for returning your money also benefits financially from holding it. Does that prove officials deliberately discourage claims? No. But the incentive deserves scrutiny. If the state benefits when money remains unclaimed, shouldn't it be especially determined to eliminate every unnecessary obstacle to returning it? ADVERTISEMENT Consider a struggling charity with an unidentified account. If it contains $18, pursuing it might not be worthwhile. If it contains $180,000, that charity might move heaven and earth to recover it. Exact amounts matter. Other states understand this. California makes unclaimed-property records available for bulk download, including exact values. Texas and Florida also disclose precise amounts through their property searches. Texas returned approximately $459.6 million in fiscal 2025. Florida returned nearly $426 million in calendar 2024. California has returned billions. These states have larger populations, so their payouts aren't directly comparable with North Dakota's. Nor do those figures prove that revealing exact amounts causes higher recovery rates. But the principle is obvious. People who know how much money awaits them have a stronger incentive to claim it. And journalists, researchers and community organizations armed with exact amounts can prioritize locating owners of substantial assets. ADVERTISEMENT North Dakota itself recognizes the value of proactive recovery. In 2025, it launched an initiative to automatically return certain verified unclaimed-property accounts worth up to $1,000. Good. But why stop there? Officials may argue that revealing exact amounts encourages fraud. Fraud prevention matters. But California, Texas and Florida disclose amounts while still requiring claimants to prove ownership. North Dakota could protect Social Security numbers, bank account numbers and other sensitive information while revealing property values. Instead, it chooses secrecy. The Department of Trust Lands should reverse that decision, publish exact amounts and make the complete database available for independent research and outreach. Government is supposed to safeguard unclaimed property until it can be reunited with its rightful owners, not make recovery unnecessarily difficult. ADVERTISEMENT And when government benefits financially from holding that money, transparency becomes even more important. North Dakota has your money.North Dakota knows exactly how much.It's time North Dakota told you. Mark Lewyn is the founder of UnclaimedMoneyGuy.com and a former BusinessWeek journalist who writes about unclaimed property and government transparency. Comments Share Share this article Letters To The Editor Letters To The Editor Ideas and conclusions submitted and held solely by readers, and do not reflect opinions of Forum Communications. The Trust Project What is this? 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