The Goal: Get More Golden Dollars Jingling In USDA Employee Pockets

It’s called the “Golden Dollar,” it depicts Shoshone Indian Sacagawea and her infant son Jean Baptiste, it has been in circulation since January 2000, the U.S. Mint is encouraging its use--and chances are you have yet to hold one in your hand.

Okay, that’s nice to know--but what does it have to do with USDA employees?

“Well, our employees are also consumers and taxpayers, and both of those groups benefit with increased use of this new Golden Dollar,” stated Roger Lancaster, general manager of USDA’s Employee Services and Recreation Association (ESRA), which offers recreational, educational, wellness, and other activities and services to USDA employees at headquarters and field locations. He is among those initiating measures that would encourage individual employees, USDA agencies, and companies servicing USDA employees and customers around the country, to incorporate the use of the Golden Dollar into their activities, as appropriate.

The Golden Dollar, he explained, focuses on Sacagawea, the young Shoshone woman who, from 1804 to 1806, assisted explorers Meriwether Lewis and William Clark on their exploration from North America’s great Northern Plains to the Pacific Ocean and back. The reverse side of the coin features a soaring eagle encircled by 17 stars, one for each of the states in the U.S. at the time of the Lewis and Clark expedition.

It is golden in color, has a smooth edge similar to a nickel, and features an extra-wide border. The coin’s features are designed to easily distinguish it, by touch alone, from the Susan B. Anthony dollar, which it will replace as the U.S. dollar coin to be used in general circulation. And it is further designed that it can also be used in all vending machines, change machines, ATM machines, and other automated cash handling equipment items that currently accommodate the Susan B. Anthony dollar.

“Each Golden Dollar costs 12 cents to make,” Lancaster said. “So the federal government makes a profit of 88 cents for each Golden Dollar that the U.S. Mint distributes to the Federal Reserve Bank.” Plus, he noted, each such coin is expected to last an average of 30 years, unlike the 18-month life of the typical dollar bill.

But because of its newness and uniqueness, people who acquire Golden Dollars through normal transactions are tending to hoard them. So USDA is trying to help in their circulation, as appropriate.

For instance, Teresa Browning, director of ESRA’s retail/Internet operations, said that ESRA operates gift shops in Washington, DC and Kansas City, Mo., for USDA employees. “In early September we talked with our ESRA accountant,” she recounted, “and requested that, the next time she processes a change order, she should acquire Golden Dollars to use in change we give our customers.”

“And I personally followed up with our ESRA store manager in Kansas City to pursue a similar option there.”

Janet Feggins, a manager with Eurest, the company which provides cafeteria services to USDA employees in the Washington, DC metropolitan area, said she has conferred with her district manager to initiate measures to acquire Golden Dollars, and then use them as part of the cash mix.

“In addition,” she noted, “I’ve alerted our cashiers that, if they get a Golden Dollar in change, to 'recycle’ it to a new customer as soon as they can.”

Theodora Ezekwerre, assistant vice president for member services with the Agricultural Federal Credit Union in Washington, DC, said that Golden Dollars have been continually available at the Credit Union since the first shipment of coins arrived earlier this year. “We also distributed them in special promotions in May,” she noted, “when children of members opened accounts with us.”

“But on a more regular basis, we’re encouraging our tellers to proactively give out the Golden Dollars to our members--and not merely when asked.”

Sandra Anglade, USDA’s Employee Recognition Program Manager with the Office of Human Resources Management, said that she is contacting agency-level awards managers, asking that they consider developing strategies that would encourage USDA headquarters and field offices to use Golden Dollars in any appropriate cash awards, employee recognition gifts, and certificate of appreciation ceremonies.

“Awards programs in the Department generally do not give out actual cash these days, and instead rely on convenience checks or direct deposit,” she acknowledged. “But there may be circumstances where Golden Dollars can be given out creatively--and we’re encouraging that, Departmentwide.”

Greg Super, recreation fee program manager with the Forest Service, said that his agency is considering expanded use of the Golden Dollar when making change at FS offices and recreation fee sites around the country. “But, right now,” he pointed out, “our automated ticket machines are already accepting and dispensing Golden Dollars at our parking facilities on the Tonto National Forest outside of Phoenix.”

He noted that, in addition, FS personnel at the agency’s Lewis and Clark National Historic Trail Interpretive Center, located outside of Great Falls, Mont., are already using the Golden Dollar as part of the change mix they provide to visitors.

And individual USDA employees are being encouraged to initiate their own creative activities to promote the use of the Golden Dollar. For instance, Janet Sledge, a Communications Coordinator in the Office of Communications, wrote a letter in August to the Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority, or “Metro,” which provides bus and subway service in the Washington, DC metropolitan area.

“In my letter I advised that I was getting weary of providing change to tourists so they could buy subway cards,” she explained. “I requested that Metro consider installing change machines at its subway stations--and that those machines could offer Golden Dollars as change.”

And has she received a reply? “A Metro official called me,” Sledge advised, “to say that my suggestion had been forwarded to the appropriate division for consideration.”

Now, if you’re a fan of the paper dollar bill and may be a little troubled by what the future portends with that particular form of denomination, rest easy. The United States Dollar Coin Act of 1997, which authorized creating the Golden Dollar, advises that “Nothing in this Act or [its] amendments...shall be construed to evidence any intention to eliminate or to limit the printing or circulation of United States currency in the $1 denomination.”

This story will resist ending on some lame line like “Go For The Gold”--but you get the idea. 

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