Save Award 2010 Department of Agriculture

Provide incentives that reduce monopolized farming and bring back safe and healthful practices to the live stock and production of fruits and vegetables.

Early out and buyout authority for 2 fiscal years
Grant federal agencies in executive branch authority to offer early outs and buyouts by reducing the highest salaries and benefits (S&B) expenditures. Most highly paid officials are eligible to retire or near retirement probably receiving close to the highest compensation in their level (e.g., about 72% of Senior Executive Service (SES) located in Washington, DC, a city... more »

Early out and buyout authority for 2 fiscal years
Grant federal agencies in executive branch authority to offer early outs and buyouts by reducing the highest salaries and benefits (S&B) expenditures. Most highly paid officials are eligible to retire or near retirement probably receiving close to the highest compensation in their level (e.g., about 72% of Senior Executive Service (SES) located in Washington, DC, a city... more »

Address all significant variables in the next phone RFP/contract to ensure we keep costs low. For example, we are charged $140.00 to transfer a phone number 10 feet from one office to another. Should this small move really cost this much?

Stop contracting office facilities. Many of the rural communities where Forest offices sit, do not have existing infrastructure suitable for office space. When bids are competed local contractors usually can not compete with larger, national out of area contractors to build and maintain the facilities. Therefore the money from facility rental doesn't stay in the community as intended. It instead goes to larger out of... more »

Stop purchasing bottled water for large campaign fires and other incidents. Use instead potable water trucks and canteens as fire crews have used in the past. Plastic bottled water is expensive. The bottles create waste, and can not always be recycled in the local communities where the fires are happening. For the most part field going fire fighters have to empty the water bottles in pack canteens anyway.

The requirements for Real Property Inventory and INFRA/I-Web Federal Real Property Profile (FRPP) assessments overlap. For Real Property Inventory, we must physically verify the asset. For FRPP we must do an assessment of the asset. Real Property allows the use of the FRPP assessment for verification, HOWEVER, Real Property has a five year cycle that is currently in its 3rd year, whereas FRPP has a five year cycle that... more »

Older computer CRT monitors and displays are costly, heavy, and somewhat power hungry. Not to mention well out-of-date with the newer LCD and Flatscreens available to us. I suggest a CRT monitor recycle center be created (maybe outsourced) to receive and process the older systems for Mercury, plastic, metals and glass. A government truck could go around to locations to pick these up as they are collected. A program... more »

Most all government facilites have some kind of yard with grass and landscaping. I have found during some rain storms that some of these have city water sprinkler systems (timed) still working and what a waste of good water. I suggest rain reservoirs be installed on roofs of this facilites to caught rain water and then use gravity to feed the yards. A soil moisture detector could determine when the water needed to be... more »

Food that goes uneaten on ships and in federal buildings (and other compostable materials, like paper plates and napkins) can be collected and sold to local agricultural entities. This way these items do not go to waste in a landfill and the local economy can benefit. Saw other posts on giving the food to the homeless, so if that is also done - compost items that are not safe to eat.

Let employees who travel book their own travel. With a given set of parameters, most people who use the internet can find cheap flights and hotels and go through the booking process on their own. Right now we spend time setting up the entire trip and then pay a fee for someone to book the travel for us using the information we already selected and using the credit card information that we already input into the system.... more »

I suggest the federal government look seriously at how we make emergency travel for wildfire fire fighters and other emergency responders. For the last 7 years I worked out of the Minnesota Interagency Fire Center as the Lead Dispatcher. It was not uncommon to make $250,000 worth of one way flights per month for MN folks leaving the state to assist in other parts of the US. The procedure was to make every flight reservation,... more »

Artificial Turf to conserve water

Simplifying the fees negotiated between Federal Government and rental car companies could save significantly. This could be imposed across the entire federal government, not just one agency.

Currently when staff travel and rent a car/van, the final fees paid are often 50% more than the booked and agreed-upon rate, due to multiple, mostly undiscernable, fees for a wide variety of things. I myself have been told from... more »

Utilize the waste heat from the computer rooms/data centers to (pre)heat hot water in the federal buildings. This would improve the efficiency of the overall energy use in Federal buildings and use energy that would otherwise be thrown away