The redesigned $20 bill released last month by the Federal Reserve has assimilated itself into everyday transactions almost perfectly — emphasis on almost.

Some stores around the Marquette campus have had difficulty accepting the new $20 bill.

Becky Koller, manager of Marquette Laundry and Tanning Center, 811 N. 16th St., said the laundromat’s two change machines could not accept the new $20 bills at first.

“Anytime you get a new bill, (the change machines) have to be reprogrammed,” Koller said.

Marquette Laundry posted signs informing patrons of the change machines’ inability to accept the new $20 bills and asked them to come to the service counter, where they gave them change for their new $20 bills by hand, she said.

The change machines were reprogrammed by a technician early last week, however, and now accept the redesigned bills.

Some of Marquette’s Value Transfer Stations, which are used to make deposits on MarquetteCards or determine a student’s MarquetteCash balance, do not currently accept the redesigned $20 bill, said Marc Belanger, applications specialist for Information Technology Services.

“The reason (the Value Transfer Stations) were having trouble accepting the new $20 bill is because the software needs to be upgraded to read and accept the new bills,” Belanger said.

Though not all of the Value Transfer Stations currently accept the redesigned $20 bill, ITS is working to make sure that all of them will be able to in the near future, Belanger said.

“IT Services is sending the bill acceptors to a service center to have them upgraded,” Belanger said. “Unfortunately, there were only two spares and they needed to be upgraded before we could start on the machines. The spares were sent to the service center at the beginning of October and they were returned in late October.

“As of Nov. 18, Raynor, Memorial, the AMU and Cudahy were upgraded and accepting the new bills. IT Services expects to have the Law Library and Science Library machines upgraded by the end of November.”

There are six Value Transfer Stations on campus. They are located in the Alumni Memorial Union, Cudahy Hall, and the Science, Law, Memorial and Raynor libraries.

The new $20 bill was released Oct. 9. The bill was redesigned to improve security, according to the Bureau of Engraving and Printing, which now touts the $20 bill as “the most secure currency in U.S history.” A new security thread, color-shifting ink and a new watermark, or “shadow portrait” of President Andrew Jackson, were added to the bill’s design to make it more secure, according to the Bureau of Engraving and Printing. The Bureau also reports that the $50 bill is going to be redesigned in 2004 and the possibilities of redesigning the $5 bill and $10 bill are being discussed.