TSA Made $400,000 Off Loose Change In 2010

You double checked you have your keys, but did you remember to take your loose change?

Plenty of travelers seem to forget the couple of coins that were floating in their pockets, and it makes the Transportation Security Administration hundreds of thousands of dollars richer every year.

In 2010, travelers left behind a whopping $409,085.56. That's $376,480.39 in pennies, nickels, dimes, quarters and dollar coins, plus $32,605.17 in foreign currency, according to USA Today.

Hurried travelers should know the coins they leave in haste don't become tips for the security agents, rather Nico Melendez, a spokesperson for the TSA told NBC San Diego, the money left in plastic bins is put in a jar and at the end of each shift they take it, count it, and send it to the finance office.

The collected cash goes into the TSA's general operating budget and is spent on general expenses -- everything from technology to lightbulbs -- since Melandez says they never know how much money people will leave behind each year. But surprisingly, the numbers have been fairly consistent with $364,000 left in 2008 and $399,000 left in 2009, reports NBC San Diego.

Of course, the TSA does make the effort to get money back to travelers. On Jan. 11 a TSA screener turned in $5,000 cash that he found on the floor at Newark Liberty International Airport. Because the cash was found near the United Airlines Elite Access check-in desk and not left in a plastic bin, the screener handed it over to the airline, who said the money will go to charity if no one claims it.

Still, there are those who aren't happy with the TSA keeping your forgotten cash. The Los Angeles Times reported that legislation has been introduced by Rep. Jeff Miller (R-Fla.) to give the money to the USO -- a non-profit that aids the country's troops and their families -- for its airport programs in support of the military.

And the director of the Consumer Travel Alliance agrees. Charlie Leocha told the LA Times, "Any use of the money by the TSA seems distasteful. It's not their money. In fact, it is money left by harassed passengers and should certainly not go to the TSA as a reward for invasive searches."

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Comments

[bahamax]

01:11 PM on 02/02/2012

Is A High School Diploma required to get these jobs ? Scarey of what goes through whilst they are screening cup cakes, Morons

[Marturia]

06:20 PM on 01/29/2012

I have a new respect for 'chump change'. Time to rummage through my pockets, the drawers, sofa, the car.........

[Eric8869]

10:01 AM on 01/18/2012

They should donate it to the Flight 93 memorial since they let people take boxcutters onboard and killed so many people.

[YOKEL13]

09:49 AM on 01/17/2012

The total does not include toothpaste and Brylcream.

[gemini68]

09:28 AM on 01/17/2012

I don't leave loose change in my pockets. It's in my wallet in my purse when I go through airport security- and I will now make sure that is stays there.

[oldebuzzard]

09:14 AM on 01/17/2012

I just dump all loose change into a shoe and can't forget it. Although, I sometimes have to find a place to sit down later to recover that change.

[Thaddeus Jude]

11:29 PM on 01/16/2012

Does that include change they found in the bras of women when they were feeling them up as part of a "routine pat down"?

[YOKEL13]

09:50 AM on 01/17/2012

It's just nipples and dimes, anyway.

[signgrrl]

05:40 PM on 01/29/2012

oy.

[J0E1]

09:41 PM on 01/16/2012

Every penny should be donated to charity.  Those bins aren't tip jars.  To claim it all goes to operating budgets is ridiculous.

[gemini68]

09:28 AM on 01/17/2012

Exactly. All they do is pocket the money when it's left behind. Are we supposed to believe that every TSA Agent who finds loose change walks it over to their supervisor? Give me a break.

[JStading]

05:16 PM on 01/17/2012

Charity? It's a government agency, maybe they should take the money and use it to defray operating costs of that bloated bureaucratic security theater.

[CrnkyOldMan]

01:12 PM on 01/16/2012

Let them keep the change, It will help with the inevitable cancer medical bills from all the radiation exposure caused by the new "safe" scanners. Cancer clusters already showing up....

[resyclr]

12:36 PM on 01/16/2012

The people should put the coins in their CARRY ON BAGS and not give them to ANYONE - Least of all TSA......

[signgrrl]

05:41 PM on 01/29/2012

they SEARCH the carry on bags. they would have only gotten 1.25 from me, anyway.

[beardown]

10:43 AM on 01/16/2012

They should split it up and get a bonus for a job well done!

[SteveDenver]

03:03 PM on 01/16/2012

When I worked in a bar, quarters were the coinage, everything else was considered "chump change" and went into a big jar. At the end of the summer: PIZZA FUND!

[Foodgrade]

01:40 AM on 01/16/2012

Yup, the TSA pukes turn it in every day. The same people who have no respect for your personal privacy or health, care a bunch about turning in all the money they shake out of your pockets. And people wonder how the Germans found people willing to put people in gas chambers? Here is an entire bunch of highly trained professionals willing to do the job.

[SteveDenver]

03:04 PM on 01/16/2012

There are alternatives to flying. Remember, it's beloved George Bush who put all this in place.

[J0E1]

09:43 PM on 01/16/2012

To claim there are alternatives in the USA to flying is ridiculous.  Maybe in small European counties but not a single person here has 5 weeks of vacation to spend driving back and forth from the east to west coast to visit family.   To get from one end of France to another takes hours and a train or bus is an option.  To get from one end of the USA to another takes days and a bus is a week, trains? lol, not a chance.

[gemini68]

09:29 AM on 01/17/2012

There aren't that many alternatives to flying. At least ones that don't take days to get you where you need to go.

[YOKEL13]

09:53 AM on 01/17/2012

You're unfairly characterizing TSA employess. Line workers don't make the rules.

[Foodgrade]

01:15 PM on 01/17/2012

That was no excuse at Nuremburg.

[farleft1917]

09:38 PM on 01/15/2012

How about giving the money to these workers who are paid miserable wages?

I do not like what they do but they work for a pitiful wage on the orders of our ruling elite who rarely have to stand in line.

[Foodgrade]

01:36 AM on 01/16/2012

What's your problem? They're making 3 times more money than they did at Mc Donalds and they get to feel up 13 year old girls and look up your wifes skirt. I think they're doing better than they ever have in their worthless lives.

[SteveDenver]

03:04 PM on 01/16/2012

Learn to spell "bananas"

[J0E1]

09:45 PM on 01/16/2012

Miserable wages?  They stand and do absolutely nothing all day but push peoples bags down a conveyor.  They should make LESS than servers who already make less than minimum wage.

[MIKEinNYC]

07:07 PM on 01/15/2012

And how about all of the stuff that they "legally" confiscate (steal) from you?

[Oneandoneandone]

12:31 PM on 01/17/2012

Like cupcakes and bottled water purchased outside the security gate.

[Quis Custodiet]

06:49 PM on 01/15/2012

My question is whether or not the TSA provisions allow for the retaining of the money and subsequent spending of it on their own operational budgets. It seems to me that as a government agency it should be limited to the funding issued to it by the government. I'm with Charlie Leoha on this. The TSA funding comes from our taxpayer dollars, money used to inconvenience, and in some cases sexually assault us prior to a long flight. To keep change left by the passengers these goons roughed up is a triple smack in the face.

[Foodgrade]

01:42 AM on 01/16/2012

So right on. That money should go to the Federal general fund, the State general fund where the airport is located or to the IRS for general return to the population.

fanned.

[Oneandoneandone]

12:32 PM on 01/17/2012

I'm not disagreeing with, but it's not sexual assault when we give them permission to feel us up. It's just. . .uncomfortable. And icky.