Projo Politics Blog

Careful readers may be wondering whether a budget shortfall has forced the state treasurer’s office to skimp on its proofreading budget.

On the cover of last week’s “notice of names appearing to be owners of unclaimed property,” the last name of General Treasurer Frank T. Caprio himself was misspelled. The image of a check for unclaimed property, with “Your Name” in the “Pay to the Order Of” field, was signed by “Frank Capiro.”

On the line above Caprio’s — or Capiro’s — name, the word “dollars” was spelled “dallars.”

Xaykham Khamsyvoravong, deputy chief of staff for Caprio, said the misspellings were deliberate. They were meant as a deterrent for would-be check forgers who might try to scan the check image, alter it on a computer, and cash it for payment.

“In our short time in office, we have seen numerous attempts to cash fraudulent checks, so we decided to use this industry practice” to discourage fraud and make the fraudulent checks easier to identify, Khamsyvoravong said.

He added that it was refreshing to see somebody else’s last name misspelled, for a change.

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