Uncashed jury duty checks gather dust in Phila.

Philadelphia’s City Controller is critical of the court system’s handling of those checks given out for jury duty.  

City Controller Alan Butkovitz said more than $91,000 in uncollected jury checks from one year ago were never transferred to the unclaimed monies fund. He says another 187,000 in checks were transferred between six months and a year behind schedule.  Primitive accounting practices, he said, are partially to blame.

 

“If you don’t know there’s $250,000 worth of uncashed checks out there you can’t take precautions from people converting them stealing them all of that,” said Butkovitz.  “This is rampant there’s a continuous use of manual posting rather than the technology that is available for it.”

The controller said adding machine tapes are used to keep track of the outstanding checks. In a computer world, the adding machine should be extinct, he said.

In a written response to the report, a First Judicial District representative said it is depositing all unclaimed monies as well as working to create an electronic filing system.