Save Award 2010 Ideas

Zero-base budgeting combined with a portfolio management approach will allow Federal Managers to ensure that our tax dollars are spent in meaningful ways. Revolving capital funds that can support work across fiscal years on projects that do not have multi-year funding are tools that will prevent Federal Managers from making less-than-optimal decisions just because their funding is about to expire. Independent information... more »

Change the monetary system utilizing two specific approaches as follows:

(1) Eliminate the dollar bill and use the dollar coin as is now done in most other countries (estimated savings of $1 billion/year per GAO and other studies). This would provide a significant greening of the environment as the coins are environmentally neutral; whereas the dollar bills contain hazardous material and cause damage to the environment... more »

I believe the Park Service would save a lot of money in both direct and indirect costs by only allowing U.S. Citizens to use/have National Parks Passes.

Currently foreign tourists are buying the National Parks Passes - which are a smoking deal - and hitting our parks in a sort of "all you can eat buffet. I know I do this, certainly foreign tourists do as well! There are two major problems with this.

Direct Cost: We... more »

FAA -- Stop forceing Operations ASI's who are within 6 to 12 months of retiring to go to CFR142 schools for to get a new type rating. These ASI's don't want to learn EFIS system, and spend time in the simulator after mid night. Even when they complian and find someone to take the class, the ASI is sent out. Save the $15,000 for someone who wants to go.

All agencies should have their own save award program to help their agencies save money, energey time or manpower.

We have signs posted on our building asking civil servants to remember to turn the lights off because we're wasting energy. Why not have motion sensing lights?

The SAVE system is poorly incentivized. Yes, I am motivated to submit good ideas to bring about change because...
1) contributing makes me feel important;
2) I don't like seeing taxpayer dollars poured down the drain;
3) it makes me look good;
4) as a taxpayer, my idea will save me personally three cents per year.
This is idea number 4011. Good turnout so far. But to REALLY start seeing results, to further incentivize... more »

Work with state and local governments to exercise imminent domain rights and purchase condemned properties that blight our cities. Turn these properties over to Habitat for Humanities and allow low income families to build and purchase homes or non-profits and small businesses to use as office buildings. The government would get back the money thay they used to purchase the property under imminent domain when the property... more »

Or are we Just Taking it away from one agency to give to another? I hope that the ideas obtained through this save program will actualy save the GOV money and help reduce the deficit. But in the back of my mind Im thinking..."did last years winner save the Gov money or just reduce the spending of one agency to give more to another? Hmmmm... Id like to here thoughts from other people...

If you truly want to save money, eliminate unnecessary Bureaucracy. There are many redundancies in the federal government and executive branch. I suggest that you start with DoD: Merge the Marine Corp and the US Army. Make the Marines a special warfare unit of the Army, much like the Airborne, so that the Marines can keep their tradition with out the overhead of a full branch of military. But, don't stop there...... more »

“There are 88,700 federal employees stationed overseas in over 140 countries. The Defense Department is the largest overseas employer with 48,151 workers (Federal Jobs).” A 5 year rule was established during the cold war “to facilitate the interchange of civilian employees of the Defense Establishment between posts of duty in the United States and posts of duty outside the United States through the establishment and... more »

Stop all benevolent (charity) spending. This would enable the federal government to focus on its true constitutionally mandated obligations. Who says so? Who is more qualified than the principal author of the Constitution to state what the federal government can expend funds on, "I cannot undertake to lay my finger on that article of the Constitution which granted a right to Congress of expending, on the objects of benevolence,... more »

Take the best suggestions listed here and implement them. That will encourage more submissions and save countless more federal dollars.

I suggest that all Taxpayers should have an IRS.gov eAccount. Taxpayers will be able to see a history of letters sent to them by the IRS, and refund information. Also the Taxpayers will be able to change their postal address and submit payments with their credit cards or bank accounts. This is a Facebook/Twitter/eMail generation. The IRS will saved milions of dolars in postage by giving acces to current and previous letters... more »

I often hear of the money wasted with METRO subsidies in the DC area. The form to request the subsidy is cumbersome and the approval process is no where near is detailed as it should be. There needs to be a system of checks and balances. Perhaps instead of using normal METRO cards that you add the subsidy dollars amount to, you are issued government METRO cards which monitor your usage and your balance thereby not allowing... more »