MORGANTOWN, W.Va. — The City of Morgantown and BOPARC have officially received money from the West Virginia Treasury’s Office as part of a return of unclaimed property.
State Treasurer Larry Pack was in attendance on the second day of the 2025 WV Municipal League Conference hosted in Morgantown, where he presented two separate checks to the city and BOPARC valued at just under $20,000. Pack presented the checks to Morgantown Mayor Danielle Trumble, who was joined by BOPARC Division Director of Marketing and Communications Bree Starsick and new Morgantown City Manager Jamie Martin, who were both in attendance.
“We brought them an unclaimed property check for about $12,000 and to the park system about $7,000, so a little less than $20,000 for both,” said Pack.
According to Morgantown Mayor Danielle Trumble, the funds are expected to be used for a variety of purposes. For the approximately $7,200 that will be awarded to BOPARC, that will be used to support select programming and any quick-use purposes. The remaining funds that are designated for general city use, valued at just over $12,000, are aimed to be used to help towards any contributions for city use. According to Trumble, options to address the now $3.1 million shortfall, now found out after an adjustment to a department accounting policy, will without question be under consideration.
“We have a little bit of a budgetary hiccup with our carryover, so I’m sure that the city portion of that will go towards covering that deficit,” said Trumble.
For Pack, the delivery of checks as part of a return of unclaimed property stems from a near year-long effort by the West Virginia Treasurer’s Office. This includes approximately $40.8 million in property tax value returned to state residents in the last fiscal year. With an over $58,000 check being presented by Pack in Preston County back in June 2025 and an $89,000 check awarded to the Marion County Sheriff’s Department hours after his visit to Morgantown, it appears that number could be repeated in FY26.
“The last fiscal year, we gave back over $40 million to various individuals, businesses, and government agencies in West Virginia,” said Pack. “So that’s the most we’ve ever given back, we really had a good year last year,, and we’ll try hard to beat it this year.”
Anyone who is interested in checking if they are eligible for unclaimed property is still able to do so on the WV Treasurer’s Office official website. Once they provide their first and last name and see if a listing shows something they want to claim, a resident can then follow through on a modernized unclaimed property system and submit information within 24 hours. With returned property slowly reaching the just over $40 million benchmark set last year, Pack encourages any Mountain State resident, as well as municipal leaders, to see what might be on the table for recovery.
“The reason we do the public check giveaways is to basically bring awareness,” said Pack. “We’re trying to get people to go to the West Virginia Treasury’s website, put their name and address in, and see if they have any money, that’s why we do the awareness part.”