I am turning to this great group with another question – this time post-award related.

It appears that during our grant closeout process, we missed that a couple of vendors to whom we issued payments for work on federal grants, never cashed their checks.  Now for reference, these projects are closed in our system, the FFRs are long submitted and approved, and the checks were issued in 2019.   

Problem: My CFOs office reached out and wants to follow the state’s unclaimed funds process and reopen the projects so they can run some A/P process, get the cost of our books, and send the funds to the state per the “unclaimed funds” process.  There is a general lack of understanding in my organization about how restricted funds can’t necessarily follow the same process as unrestricted funds.  There is a bit of a what’s good for the goose is good for the gander mentality and I’m constantly saying timeout!

Question: Those of you who have post-award oversight and work at public institution in states with unclaimed funds processes, have you navigated this? 

Thank you!