"Our staff has worked hard to return over $125 million since the program started and this year we are making a special emphasis on returning unclaimed property to Kansas businesses as part of our Back to Business program," said McKinney. "In these challenging economic times I am committed to do everything I can to return these resources to Kansas companies so they in turn can focus on job creation in our state."

A special website has been created to assist Kansas businesses and not for profit organizations to search for their unclaimed property - www.kansascash.com/back2business. On the website there are approximately 500,000 potential claims totaling about $16.4 million. Each year businesses, utility companies, banks, and organizations turn over to the Kansas State Treasurer's office more than $20 million in unclaimed funds that they are holding for individual Kansans and businesses in our state. In addition, nearly 600 lost or forgotten safe deposit boxes are sent to the state when banks can no longer find the owner of the contents.

"Kansans value private property rights, and as custodian of this unclaimed property we take the responsibility to reunite Kansas businesses with their assets very seriously," said McKinney.

"Our members are extremely pleased Treasurer McKinney has made it a priority to return unclaimed property to Kansas small businesses," said Dan Murray, state director of the NFIB/Kansas, the state's leading small business association.

"Small business is the backbone of the economy and the key to leading Kansas out of this recession," Murray said. "Treasurer McKinney's Back to Business program is helping to put resources back in the hands of small businesses where jobs are created."

The reporting of utility deposits, inactive savings and checking accounts, un-cashed checks, stock shares and bonds, dividend checks, insurance proceeds, and mineral royalties is required by state law under the Unclaimed Property Act. To date, the Kansas Treasurer's Office has over $208 million worth of unclaimed property and over 12,000 safe deposit box properties on file. Thousands of active and former business entities might have unclaimed property claims with a cumulative total of several millions of dollars. Frequently business unclaimed property claims are created when a check was not delivered to a business due to an addressing error or a check may have never been cashed once it was received.

Treasurer McKinney's office publishes the owner's name on our website and performs outreach to reconnect the customers with their lost funds.

Making a claim is free and easy. There are no fees involved in searching for or claiming cash and property. Kansans may call the State Treasurer's Office at 1-800-432-0386 or log onto www.kansascash.com.

McKinney is a farmer, small business owner, and former legislator from Greensburg. Since taking office in January of 2009, McKinney has worked to cut through bureaucratic red tape, set records in consecutive years for reuniting Kansans with their unclaimed property, emphasized careful management of taxpayer's dollars, and reformed the state's housing loan program to promote new construction and good paying jobs for Kansas workers.