The Carbon County Sheriff’s office handed over $51,000 to the board of commissioners in an attempt to help save the county funds.

On Thursday, Sheriff Dan Zeigler approached the commissioners and presented the check, which is the result of unclaimed property that his office had through the state.

“We value fiscal responsibility,” he said. “That being said, from the beginning of the year, we have worked diligently with the treasurer for the commonwealth of Pennsylvania and as a result of that, I’m going to present to the commissioners ... a check for $51,000 that will be refunded back to the county for unclaimed property.”

Zeigler added that the check, which was officially given to the county treasurer, will be deposited into the general fund or wherever the county commissioners see fit.

“I think that’s kind of a big deal that we were able to work pretty diligently to reclaim those funds and give them back to the county and the taxpayers who all know we’ve been struggling with the budget,” he said. “There are definitely some challenges so hopefully this helps a little bit.”

Unclaimed property is tracked by the state and is available to family members and counties if it isn’t collected by the person it was initially intended for. In the case of the funds claimed by Carbon, Zeigler said that there could be several types of transactions in these claims, including things like real estate sales.

Zeigler added that he also hopes a small portion of the return can be used on projects in the sheriff’s office.

Commissioners’ Chairman Mike Sofranko thanked Zeigler for his hard work in getting that money back to the county.

This is the second time in three years, that Carbon County has claimed unclaimed property through the state.

In August 2023, the county received a check for $5,038.09 from the state treasury following the work of the Recorder of Deed Donna Gentile, who found 29 properties from various county offices were unclaimed.

The commissioners at that time said that money would be put into the archives department to help maintain the county records.

To check if you have any unclaimed property, visit www.patreasury.gov/unclaimed-property.