I was tasked to find out some information regarding the handling and deposit of monies (to include Safekeeping, Found Property, and Evidence) received into the Property & Evidence Department and then deposited into a bank account.
Our questions are:
What type of an account do you have?
What are the policies and procedures that encompass these operations? ( If possible please send me a copy)
How are the monies returned to the ownesr once the case is adjudicated?
What happens to the interest rate that is collected?
I could go on with other questions but I believe that if your agency has something in place it would answer these as well.
Appreciate any help that you may be able to provide.
Thanks for your time,
Jason Michael – Property & Evidence/ QAS & NIBIN Liaison
Office Address: 12401 W. Cinnabar Avenue, El Mirage, AZ 85335
P: 623-500-3038 | F: 623-500-3098 | E:jmichael@cityofelmirage.org
Appreciate the posting of this question.
Thanks for your help.
Hi Jason, we hold all cash on hand. We don’t get anything large. I think the largest we had was $40,000 cash and that was returned to the next of kin. When it’s time to deposit, I take the money over to the City and they deposit it in the General Fund. If it is forfeiture, then the forfeiture detective takes it over to be deposited. A receipt is given for each deposit, so sometimes it could be 5 or more transactions. I file the receipt with the paperwork and it is scanned into our P/E RMS.
I can’t wait to see what other responses you get!
~Lisa
This may not be much help, but when Sierra Vista receives money from a case, the officers usually put in safe keep for return to the individual they took it from. If it is evidence, we hold it in a safe until adjudication and then it is returned. If we deposit the money, when the case is adjudicated, I have to put in a request through my commander to have a check cut and returned to the owner. As for the type of account, that I am not sure of, goes into an account with the city. As for interest, the owner only gets back the amount that was taken from them. RICO money is different, I will get a form from the case detective and that money is deposited right away. Hope this helps some.
Tim Paterson
SVPD Evidence Custodian.
Hi Jason,
Tempe keeps all currency in the safe until it can either be returned or escheated. Currency returned to the owner is the actual currency taken unless we are mailing out of state, it is then converted to a check and mailed. After adjudication of cases, an escheat process takes place and the money is deposited to the general fund.
Phoenix followed the same process as described above –
Debbie Campbell
Tempe Property Supervisor
Debbie –
I appreciate the response.
Made me do a little research as to what “escheat” means. Never heard that before…
I will be putting together a summary of these responses and send them forward to my supervisor for review.
Appreciate all the comments.
Keep them coming…
Finance created a sub account at our service bank (Chase), which is utilized only by Evidence, and only for deposits. This allows for easier accounting. I keep only about $2500 in our safe. When it exceeds that amount, or when we get a large amount (our largest was a siezure of $375,000) I take it to the bank, which happens to be next door. I keep $100 available to return small amounts of Safekeeping money, but all other releases require about a week. As soon as the release notification comes from the Court, we notify the owner, and advise him/her that we will call them to make an appointment for pickup. We then notify Finance of the release, and the amount, and they forward a check to us via interoffice mail. We then call the owner and have them pick it up. We don’t release the interest.