Save Award 2010 Ideas

Most contractors offer basic products at exorbitant prices—sometimes even greater than Staples. Since GSA Advantage compares prices from tons of small- and mid-sized businesses, you can EASILY order the cheapest available product from multiple businesses. I have cut down orders from $2000 to under $500 while getting the same product. Implemented government-wide, this can produce significant savings. After all, that... more »

I suggest you...save several billion of dollars per year by Using Existing Social Security Offices to Administer New Health Care Plan:
In order to administer the new health care plan established by Congress, the government will have to spend hundreds of millions of dollars to set up a service network. It can take GSA 2 to 3 years to build out new office space. I suggest that we use the 1200 or so field offices already... more »

Recently my office requested two bids for re-carpeting our office in a GSA run Federal Bldg. and adding an air-conditioner to a computer server closet. The response was provided by GSA. To carpet a 7,000sq foot office the GSA returned an estimate of 60,000 dollars! That is 8.57 cents per sq. foot installed. The same commercial grade carpet bought at a Home Depot would run 1.99 a square foot. For the air-conditioning... more »

Consolidate Administrative Functions for all Federal Agencies in a Department of Administration: Reorganize OMB, GSA, NARA, and the Human Capital, Reporting and Records Management functions across the Federal Govt. Manadatory use of the Services provided. Prevent waste and abuse in three critical areas: Training Facilities (esp IT), FY end supply and service purchasing, HR Practices (stratify or benchmark performance... more »

If the idea is to save money, why do we have to continue purchasing items through DHS Advantage or GSA Catalogs. On many ocassions, the same items can be found online at other retailers are a fraction of the cost.

After a recent stint at one of the FLETC, it became blatantly obvious exactly how much in government funds is wasted via the government's contracts with travel agencies such as Sato/GetThere. An attempt to book a flight from New York to Charleston, which included a layover in Georgia, netted the contracted travel agency $1299+ taxes/fees, while a direct flight could have been booked through the airline's website at $180+... more »

I suggest you establish a computerized percent effort system within and across agencies to ensure that grantees and contractors don't get paid for greater than 100% effort. Double billing costs the government money and is fraudulent. It overpays some people, while others are deprived of money. See http://legalschnauzer.blogspot.com/2009/01/universities-and-other-scoundrels-reach.html

This idea would also help us avoid future oil spills by becoming less dependent on foreign oil .At the end of the Industrial Revolution our government entered the White Collar Era. We have grown up during the Information Age which morphed into the Digital Age that we are in right now. We seemed to have forgotten the basic concept that made the Industrial Revolution one of the most important events in human history. "Interchangeable... more »

Allow agencies to make purchases independant of GSA to secure the best pricing.

 

Example: Our agency just purchased 8 trash cans thru GSA at a cost of $50.00 each. Office Max has the identical trash cans at $4.99 retail, yet we were unable to purchase from them. Eliminate the 10% tribute we pay to GSA for construction and design services we contract.

Get rid of GSA realty requirement-They charge a fee for everything they do and the biggest problem is that we are forced to use them. I can't tell you how many times we have found office space cheaper but had to pay more because GSA forced us into a building that was more expensive for rent.

GSA VS. I-fleet vehicles. BLM has an interior fleet of vehicles and also uses GSA vehicles. BLM should use one system or the other. Using two systems is confusing and causes duplication in paperwork, personnel, under utilizing of vehicles and increase cost of disposal.