Save Award 2010 Ideas

Why not reward employees with time off awards when they save the govt. money? e.g., when on govt travel, travel, flying home the evening after the workday rather than the next morning, or staying with relatives instead of booking a hotel.

The goal: Assist in transforming the mindset from “spend” to “save”.

My ideal is to create a system that has the ability to track agencies fiscal year spending to budget projection ratios. The system would then apply a rating or grade to the different agencies.

A high grade/rate would be given to agencies spending less than what was budgeted.
An average grade/rate would be given to agencies spending what was budgeted.... more »

There are currently over 80 Federal Means-tested programs paying out more than $500 Billion dollars annually.

Run a computer match with the Unclaimed Property Agencies for all 50 States against the SSN's of those receiving these Federal means-tested benefits. The States currently hold about $30 Billion Dollars in unclaimed property that belongs to an estimated 1 out of every 6 Americans.

A successful match may... more »

Excessive processing fees are needlessly charged and many times inflated prices for flights are billed to the federal government through the travel system. The government is charged for every voucher processed through the system. The simplest voucher that pays an employee a single per diem without hotel charges, costs the government over $13; and the travel agency did not do anything except their computer system was... more »

At USDA/NASS we use FedEx all the time for packages and envelopes, especially for 'priority' deliveries. It’s no secret that the USPS is suffering. Instead of 'outsourcing' shipping AND bailing out the USPS why not keep all mail originating from federal offices in the federal system and use the USPS? The USPS offers the exact same services as FedEX and since it is in the federal system, in theory, our federally protected... more »

My suggestion is to go a leasing plan with computers. The biggest problem we have is that when a computer life span is over then it either gets dumped in a recycling place or it is donated to schools. Donating to schools are great as long as the computers are functioning, but by the time a lot of the computers get to them, they have had their life cycle and usually on it's "last leg" I believe going to leasing computers... more »

Idea:
All Government Agencies should adopt the National Incident Management System (NIMS) method of addressing communications. “Common Terminology” The first time an acronym is introduced into a document the author should always write a long name in full, regardless of how well known it is.

Example: National Incident Management System (NIMS)

Benefit: Speeds up work flow. Increases productivity, Decreases mistakes.... more »

I suggest that the government goes paperless. The amount the government spends on paper that is wasted on a daily basis, improper printouts that range from the layout, to even the wrong item. The toner itself is expensive and requires the government to spend enormous amounts of funds to procure. Just how paper is wasted, toner is wasted also but at a more expensive price. There are only a couple of reason why anyone prints... more »

Save travel costs, energy costs, go green, and increase health of federal employees by providing low cost non-motorized vehicle reimbursements rather than only providing the current high cost motorized vehicle use rates. If as an example, just 2% of the federal employees would use bicycles that could be reimbursed at 10 cents per mile instead of 50 cents/mile for automobile use -- many millions of dollars would be saved... more »

We need to change our government budget culture where saving money is seen as a failure and is punished with lower funding. Each year, every government agency does its best to spend all the money allotted to it, even if it doesn't really need to, for fear that if money is left over funding will be cut to insufficient levels in the next fiscal year. In a sense, it becomes our job to make the government bigger. This culture... more »

I suggest we use more Industrial Engineers and IE tools to run our government departments better, more efficiently, more cost effective and with a higher rate of quality. There are many depts. across the USA that would benefit from being integrated to achieve a common goal. This is also true for many state run organizations i.e. law enforcement, doctors, Dept of Transportation. Imagine everything working in synchrony... more »

Save travel costs, energy costs, go green, and increase health of federal employees by providing low cost non-motorized transportation reimbursements rather than only providing the current high cost motorized vehicle use rates. If, as an example, just a couple percent of federal employees would use bicycles, small-wheeled transport, wheelchairs, kayaks, walking, etc. that could be reimbursed at 10 cents per mile instead... more »

To accommodate and incentivize shopping around for the best value, employees who use a shipping service to move their household effects and unaccompanied baggage which charges less than the government contractor should be reimbursed not only the cost of shipping, but also 50% of the savings accrued by the government . This same principle of rewarding conscientious spending could be applied to many government expenses,... more »

Problem: Meeting Inefficiencies. Houndreds and thousands of hours in lost productivity, employee costs, travel expenses and overhead can be recovered by utilizing a systematic set of procedures and remote meeting software when organizing and executing meetings.
Conservative estimates of total federal meeting expenses are $8 billion dollars annually, (employee wages, travel expenses and overhead). Utilization of a systematic... more »

Eliminate DEAS--extramural support staff. With electronic documents and many processes, ESA are not essential. Furthermore, their productivities and quality of work are not up to par in general. Overall, the DEAS system is not managed effectively. This is a waste of resources to keep these staff that do not really provide any support at all.