TSA Collects Over $750k From Flyers in 2015

Denver Airport Security

Agency bonus collected from left-over change at checkpoints.

The Transportation Security Administration (TSA) was able to recover over $750,000 in their budget last year, thanks to the kindness of flyers who were in a hurry to leave the checkpoint. USA Today reports the aviation security arm of the Department of Homeland Security collected the extra money due to travelers leaving their spare change behind.

The $756,759.15 is a new record of spare change collected at checkpoints across the United States, breaking the previous watermark of $674,841.06 left in 2014. Under federal law, the TSA is able to collect any money left behind at checkpoints – and once counted, it legally belongs to the administration. Between 2008 and 2015, the agency has added over $4 million to their budget through the spare change left at checkpoints by flyers.

“There are instances where loose change or other items are left behind and unclaimed,” a spokesperson for the TSA told USA Today in a statement. “Receipts of unclaimed money are deposited into a Special Fund account so that the resources can be tracked easily and subsequently expended.”

The nearly one million collected pales to the $7.3 billion requested budget for the administration by Homeland Security in 2016. In perspective, the collected change from flyers across the country would be enough to cover a portion of the proposed Georgia training facility expansion, or cover nearly one-quarter of the proposed $2.8 million budget increase to support the terrorist watchlist service.

Travelers who do not wish to donate their spare change to the TSA have additional options when flying across the country as well. At Phoenix Sky Harbor International Airport (PHX), travelers can donate change to the USO prior to arriving at the checkpoint. In Denver, flyers have donated over $280,000 to a homeless support program by dropping spare change prior to the checkpoint.

[Photo: Getty]