5119.34 Administering funds held in trusts for benefit of institution or mentally ill persons. - Ohio Statutes

5119.34 Administering funds held in trusts for benefit of institution or mentally ill persons.

The director of mental health may accept, hold, and administer in trust on behalf of the state, if it is for the public interest, any grant, gift, devise, or bequest of money or property made to the state for the use or benefit of any institution described in section 5119.02 of the Revised Code or for the use and benefit of mentally ill persons under its control. If the trust so provides, the money or property may be used for any work which the department of mental health is authorized to undertake.

The department shall keep such gift, grant, devise, or bequest as a distinct property or fund and, if it is in money, shall invest it in the manner provided by law. The department may deposit in a proper trust company or savings bank any money left in trust during a specified life or lives and shall adopt rules governing the deposit, transfer, withdrawal, or investment of such money and the income thereof.

The department shall, in the manner prescribed by the director of budget and management pursuant to section 126.21 of the Revised Code, account for all money or property received or expended under this section. The records, together with a statement certified by the depository showing the funds deposited there to the credit of the trust, shall be open to public inspection. The director of budget and management may require the department to file a report with him on any particular portion, or the whole, of any trust property received or expended by it.

The department shall, upon the expiration of any trust according to its terms, dispose of the funds or property held thereunder in the manner provided in the instrument creating the trust. If the instrument creating the trust failed to make any terms of disposition, or if no trust was in evidence, then the decedent patient’s money, saving or commercial deposits, dividends or distributions, bonds, or any other interest-bearing debt certificate or stamp issued by the United States government shall escheat to the state. All such unclaimed intangible personal property of a former patient shall be retained by the managing officer in such institution for the period of one year, during which time every possible effort shall be made to find such former patient or his legal representative.

If, after a period of one year from the time the patient has left the institution or has died, the managing officer has been unable to locate such person or his legal representative, then upon proper notice of such fact the director shall at that time formulate in writing a method of disposition on the minutes of the department authorizing the managing officer to convert such intangible personal property to cash to be paid into the state treasury to the credit of the general revenue fund.

The department shall include in its annual report a statement of all money and property and the terms and conditions relating thereto.

Effective Date: 07-01-1988