The state of Kansas has announced plans to sue the NCAA to recover funds the state claims the Association owes from unclaimed property.

Kansas State Treasurer Tim Shallenburger claims the NCAA owes about $700,000 for Men's Final Four ticket refunds from 1985 through 1995. The NCAA disputes that amount and has sent the state a check for more than $370,000, the amount the NCAA believes it truly owes.

The refunds are for those persons who applied unsuccessfully through the annual Final Four ticket lottery, then could not be reached to return funds because their addresses were no longer valid. The NCAA has held the money it its bank accounts, but Kansas law requires that money to be returned to the state.

The state of Kansas informed the NCAA at the end of July that it owed almost $2 million, including interest and penalties. However, the Association expressed concerns about how the state arrived at its dollar figures. For example, for years in which no actual records still exist as to how many ticket refunds could not be returned, the auditors included in their calculations revenue derived from television, merchandise, concessions and sources other than just ticket sales. In addition, they included revenue for tickets to all 63 games in the Division I Men's Basketball Championship, not just the three games in the Final Four.

The NCAA met in August with representatives from the Kansas treasurer's office and pointed out errors in the state's calculations of the amount owed. The NCAA staff had several telephone conversations thereafter in September with those representatives to discuss various ways of calculating the amount owed. The NCAA offered to meet again with the state, but the state treasurer did not meet with NCAA President Cedric W. Dempsey until the end of September, after which Dempsey said though he was pleased that Shallenburger agreed with some of the points the NCAA made in previous meetings, the two parties still were unable to arrive at an agreed-upon amount owed.

After Shallenburger announced his intention to sue the Association, Dempsey said the $370,000 check the Association sent is the correct amount.

"With this check, we believe we have complied with the law," Dempsey said. "We have never suggested that we wouldn't comply, and we regret Mr. Shallenburger's suggestion that we have been less than cooperative in meeting the state's request."

Shallenburger criticized the NCAA for ignoring letters sent in 1997 and 1998 to collect the money, but the Association said no one recalls receiving those letters.

The NCAA did, however, cooperate with the state once it was notified in January of the state's intention to audit the Association. In fact, the auditor hired by the state of Kansas noted that the NCAA was fully cooperative.

Shallenburger, however, has not been satisfied, and seeks to impose penalties that require a finding that the NCAA was willful in its failure to return the unclaimed refunds to the state -- including an accusation that it willfully withheld documents during the audit -- a statement disputed by NCAA staff since the documents in question resulted in the lowering of the amount owed rather than increasing it.

"Contrary to Mr. Shallenburger's claims, we have never withheld any data requested," Dempsey said. "As we reviewed the methodology used by the state, we provided additional support data in an effort to clarify how specific accounting totals in our records were calculated. Our efforts at trying to resolve this matter have consistently been met with inflammatory remarks that appear to be designed more to berate than to reach resolution."

Currently, the Kansas treasurer's office is holding about $90 million in unclaimed property for about 375,000 owners.

The money comes from such things as abandoned bank accounts, uncashed dividend and interest checks, unreturned utility or rent deposits and contents of safe-deposit boxes.

The treasurer's office is charged by law with attempting to find the owners of the property and returning it to them. If owners cannot be located, the property remains in the state treasury.