A Day Late and a Dollar Short

The message showed up in my e-mail in box seven times within the space of an hour and a half.  Now, it's true that I am a member of lots of e-mail list-servs or "message boards," as some call them, but even for me, to receive the same message seven times within a couple of hours, and from seven different sources, may be some kind of record.  The announcement concerns a new paper-currency identifier that costs only $99.  Spending nearly a  hundred dollars for a gadget that identifies the denominations on paper currency may seem like an extravagance to you, especially if your eyes work for the purpose of currency identification, and if you are unaware of the costliness of many pieces of assistive technology, but to the correspondents on the various blindness-related lists, this announcement was real news!  The only other portable money identifier that anyone has ever known about or used has been selling for as much as $400, and I've never seen it for under $230, and that was a big sale!  Some people own scan-and-read-aloud systems, like OpenBook, and Kurzweil,  with a currency identification feature, but the software costs well over a thousand dollars, and flat-bed scanners are neither ESPECIALLY portable nor fast!  I think the new scan and read software that can be installed in a cell phone has a currency identification feature, but that system is also quite expensive, selling for well over the $99 price tag for this little gadget.

People were definitely excited, some were counting their pennies to see just how soon they could order the gismo, which is being marketed by Orbit Research, and is called the iBill Talking Banknote Identifier.  Others were adding it to their holiday wish lists.

Not I!  I don't want one.  I don't covet it, I won't be buying it for myself or for a friend, and, before too long, I won't need it!  That's what I told several people who had passed along the announcement to me. The U. S. Department of the Treasury is under a court order to make our paper currency accessible, and although the months and years have dragged by since December of 2006, WHEN the American Council of the Blind (ACB) won their 2002 law suit against the U. S. Department of the Treasury, and since the Bush administration immediately appealed that decision, and since the ACB prevailed in the appeals process in May of 2008, and since September of 2008 when the judge told the Treasury that they couldn't release any more new bills until they had found a way to make them accessible, and furthermore that  he expected them to issue frequent progress reports detailing their efforts - and advancement - toward reaching the goal of making paper money accessible, and, since the Bureau of Engraving and Printing hired a consultant to compile statistics and research various means for doing just that, and since the consultants released a detailed report on the subject in August of 2009...  Phfew, it's been a long time since attorney Jeffrey Lovitky filed the law suit on behalf of the American Council of the Blind in 2002, but our long wait must be nearly over, I told my friends and colleagues.  I think this device is a day late and, at a dollar short of a C-Note, I'm not buying!

I began calling the Bureau of Engraving and Printing in the U. S. Department of the Treasury.  Over two days, I called and left messages and was shuffled back and forth between departments and spokespersons, none of whom, it seemed, actually wanted to speak officially about the long delay in arriving at accessible currency, the court order, or an anticipated date for actually making our bills accessible.  Finally, within minutes of my go-to-press deadline, Claudia Dickens, Manager for External Affairs, at the U. S. Bureau of Engraving and Printing in the Department of the Treasury, was able to answer my questions.  Her answers have made me think again about my refusal to purchase a gadget that will read aloud the printed denominations on paper currency.  The wait has been a long one, and, according to Dickens, there is no definite end date in sight!

"We are still analyzing the results from the report," she said, and, no, they have not identified one best solution for making currency accessible.

Why, I asked, is it taking so long?  In 1995, the National Science Foundation conducted significant research about ways of making currency accessible for people who cannot see.  They released a comprehensive report.  The Department is aware of that research, is it not, I continued, momentarily abandoning my resolve to come across as objectively as possible.

"The report is on our web site," she replied.  "But it's not as simple as it would appear," she said.

"Can you project a date by which time we can expect the issuance of an accessible bill," I asked.

"No," she said.  "It won't be until after the issuance of the new one-hundred dollar bill," and she added, "And we don't know when that bill will be issued."

"Will it be accessible?" I asked.

"It will not," Dickens replied.  Apparently, or at least according to her explanation, currency does not have to be accessible until the Department issues the bill that comes out after the new one-hundred.

So, now, I'm rethinking my resolute commitment to wait for the Treasury to come through.  My wait, it appears, may continue to be a long one.

Maybe an extra hundred dollars isn't all that much to spend for easy access to the printed information on my paper currency, I'm trying to convince myself.  None of the reasons for declaring that the U. S. Government is violating Section 504 of the Vocational Rehabilitation Act of 1973 by not making paper currency accessible to all of its citizens has changed.  I guess the court, and ACB and their lawyer are still receiving progress reports from the Bureau of Engraving and Printing.  Who knows exactly how long the Bureau can or will delay...

A year ago, in this blog-space, I urged then Secretary of the Treasury Henry Paulson, to move making paper currency accessible up on his to-do list.  A new administration has come to town, and, yes, there are many extremely important issues on their proverbial plate, but it appears that we still need to encourage the Treasury Secretary to make this civil rights issue one of them and  move accessible currency up on the departmental to-do list!  Secretary Bernanke, are you listening?

It appears that, once again and still, it's the U. S. Department of the Treasury that's a day late and a dollar short!