One insurance company, Mara says, recently turned over to the state a check for $130 that it owes the Harvard Business Review. In three years, the company was not able to get the money to the review, Mara says somewhat incredulously.

"Companies are supposed to attempt to notify the individual or company," Mara says. "There are an awful lot of companies who won't notify a place like Harvard."

Banks have a decidedly mixed record of informing their customers of inactive accounts. In the early 1980s, Mara says, the Bank of Boston once claimed, for example, that it could not find Carl Yastrzemski to tell him his account was inactive. Yastrzemski, a Hall of Fame baseball player, was widely known to spend many an afternoon in the same place: Fenway Park, where he played left field for the Boston Red Sox.

Holding onto the money for three years can save a company money, because their debt will be worth less (because of inflation and the interest the money earns while sitting in the company's bank account) by the time it becomes the property of the state.

The treasury tries to protect the value of the accounts it supervises by making interest payments on the accounts. Interest bearing accounts turned over to the state treasury receive five percent annual interest for as long as the government holds the money. Checking accounts or money due Harvard from other sources receive one percent annual interest, Mara says.

The Business School led all University affiliated entities with four "abandoned" accounts. Mary Keefe, director of the financial office at the Business School, said she was working to get the money back. She declined to answer other questions about the nature of the accounts.

"We are actively pursuing that," Keefe says.

According to Mara, some of the money owed to the Business School is held by companies in which the University has investments. Philip Morris, for example, owes the school a $150 dividend check. In addition, IBM appears to owe the Harvard Coop some investment-related money, Mara says.

Diane McAdams, a marketing official at Philip Morris, said the dividend check snafu was likely the result of a clerical error on the company's part.

"When our shareholder records do not have the correct address on file, it goes to the state," McAdams said. "We try to find the shareholder as best they can."

Mary Cassesso, director of administration at the Harvard School of Dental Medicine, says the dental school does not have any outside bank accounts that could be abandoned. However, a source at the dental school says the abandoned account was a $123 check from MIT that the Institute had never mailed to the school.

"It doesn't take a genius for someone at MIT to find out what the address for Harvard is," Mara says.

In fact, MIT had three accounts it has yet to settle with the University. The vocational school down Mass. Ave. also owes money to both the Harvard Club of Boston and the Harvard College Library. Officials at the club and the library did not return repeated telephone calls yesterday. Chuck Shaw, an auditor at MIT, says he was unaware of any money not paid to Harvard. He says the Institute's policy is to send out letters letting companies and other colleges know that MIT has money that was due them. "We do send letters out, and if we don't get responses, we have to turn it over to the state," Shaw says.

Mara also says McGraw Hill, the New York-based publishing giant, owed Harvard some of the money now controlled by the state treasury. Bill Farley, associate general counsel for McGraw Hill, says he had no information on the case and could not respond to the issue. He suggests that Mara may have erred in naming his company.

"I can't imagine any situation that would arise where we would send the money to the state treasury," Farley says. "I don't think we have a policy other than to write a check and send it to them in the mail."