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Boone County Treasurer Nicole Galloway announced Wednesday Boone County was selected to receive one of five statewide awards.

Galloway won the 2012 Missouri Association of Counties’ County Excellence Award for the creation of the state’s only county-based online unclaimed property database.

During the past 13 months, Boone County’s unclaimed property database has returned more than $11,000 to citizens and businesses.

Paul Land owns Columbia’s Plaza Commercial Realty.  Land does a lot of work for Boone County and misplaced one of his county checks worth $1,200.  Land found the missing check on Boone County’s online unclaimed property database.

Land said, “It had fallen through the cracks some place.  I just thought it was another situation where I had done some Pro Bono work.  I actually found out that there was a payment behind it.”

Unlike the state’s unclaimed property, Boone County does not have any items.  The county database only has checks issued by the county that remain uncashed.  County Treasurer Nicole Galloway said some of the reasons for uncashed checks include wrong mailing addresses because people move without forwarding their mail and the fact that people sometimes lose them.

Galloway said, “It’s always in their name.  It’s always their money.  I feel it’s my responsibility to do what I can to return that money that rightfully belongs to them.”

Boone County’s unclaimed property holds more than $50,000 in more than 3,000 accounts.

Galloway hopes her award increases awareness of her online database and gets more people to go to her website where they can search and get their money.

If you live in Boone County, you can search and see if you have any unclaimed checks by going to the main page of the Treasurer’s website.