Lisa Fogarty, assistant vice president in the public affairs department of the Atlanta Federal Reserve Bank, spoke to the Rotary Club of Lawrenceville on Monday, September 21, about the function of the Federal Reserve System. After giving a history of the Reserve, dating back to the Federal Reserve Act of 1913, she focused on the functions of the organization: to prevent disruptions by working to stabilize the economy, to manage inflation, and to intervene in time of financial crisis. She described the organizational structure with its twelve districts, each with a Board; the Board of Governors; and the Federal Open Market Committee. She outlined three functions: (1) supervision of banks via examiners, (2) payment services such as providing oversight of banks, serving as fiscal agent for the U.S. Treasury, holding cash deposits, finding counterfeited bills, and taking bills out of circulation, and (3) determining monetary policy. Stressing the independence of the Fed from political interests, she discussed the process by which the Fed itself is audited.