Agency Has Collected Over $1 Million In Leftover Coins

Have you ever dumped your loose change into a bin at a TSA airport checkpoint, then forgotten it and left it behind? If so, you're not alone.

The Transportation Security Administration says it has collected -- and kept, thanks again! -- more than a million dollars in the past three years from airline passengers who forget coins at checkpoints (perhaps the agency is melting down the loose change to make those shiny new badges? -- Ed.)

The policy started October 2004, when the agency lobbied Congress to amend federal law and let the agency put the money toward security costs. Before that, money left at checkpoints disappeared into the vast darkness of the US Treasury's general fund.

Surprisingly, USA Today reports there is a big difference among airports and regions in how much change is left behind. So, whose more careful with their money?

In the three years ending last October 1, passengers at Los Angeles International Airport left behind more than $89,000. At Chattanooga Metropolitan Airport in Tennessee, the 2007 total was just $1.20.

The TSA says coins are left by passengers too rushed to bother, or who lose sight of it in gray-colored bins.

Don Thomas, an official with the screeners' union, and a screener himself official at Orlando International Airport, theorizes foreign travelers leaving the US realize the coins will be worthless to them when they get back home. Sadly, with the decline in the value of the US Dollar, some domestic travelers may reach the same conclusion.

But the TSA itself is very tight with its windfall. Screeners who pocket the change instead of turning it over to the agency are taking a big risk. "TSA takes the handling of any passenger items, whether left voluntarily or involuntarily, very seriously," said agency spokesman Sterling Payne.

He adds one screener was fired for pilfering a nickel and two pennies.

FMI: www.tsa.gov