SAVE Award 2011 Ideas

Thousands of crewmembers are processed by Customs and Border Protection Officers in extremely busy airports with numbers that range as  high as 41 million passengers (including as much as 8 million international passengers) in Atlanta's Hartfield Jackson International Airport (US busiest airport) to average 29 million passengers a year including 9 million international passengers every year in over 20 airports around ...more »

We can stream line overlapping law enforcement functions/jurisdictions, and save money, have a higher amount of productivity and utilization of resources,a stronger more defined mission, and a stronger more supportive Chain of Command adherant to the Criminal Law Enforcement mission. This will be accomplished by consolidating the criminal law enforcement functions of the underutillized,misappropriated "orphan" positions ...more »

Why does a completely tax exempt organization voluntarily throw away billions of dollars by paying taxes on travel? I travel a lot for the Navy and detest that taxes for TDY travel expenses are charged to my government credit card. Though the Government Treasury will get the taxes back, for the Navy and the Program Office (PMA), those funds are lost. Those lost and unrecoverable funds, which can quickly add up to billions, ...more »

It is a given that CPUs need to be replaced every so often to accommodate software upgrades and improve processing speeds. (Perhaps it is true that some agencies, such as SSA, replace them too frequently, but that is the subject of other SAVE Award ideas so I will not get into that here.) However, computer monitors have longer life cycles and so whenever agencies do a workstation replacement they should not simply replace ...more »

A Personal Day option should be considered as being added to the available choices of employee leave. Up to 3 or 4 days per year should be alotted to all employees with a no questions asked policy as to why you need to use one. However by using a personal day you will consent to be charged double the amount of time from your annual accrued leave. IE You take a personal day on an 8 hr wrk day, you will be charged 16 hrs ...more »

According to www.SSA.gov, the Social Security Administration web site, there are 9.4 million Veterans who receive Social Security benefits. Many Veterans receive pension (needs based), and not compensation, with the VA. Many Veterans receive SSI (needs based), and not Social Security beneifts, with SSA. There needs to be a monthly interface of earnings and benefit payment information between SSA and VA. The Veteran ...more »

Social Security benefits have a Family Maximum Payment.

SSI has a maximum on a married couple of $1,011. There is no maximum, though, on childrens benefits. If a couple has several disabled children, the couple could make more per month than most hard-working Americans who go to work.

SSI Benefits should have a FMAX just as Social Security Payments do.

The Social Security Administration processes disability claims. There are many, many thousands backlogged. The Department of Veterans Affairs processes disability claims. There are many, many thousands backlogged. There are hundreds of thousands of Veterans who file disability claims annually. Many of these Veterans are receiving, or have filed for, Social Security disability. In an electronic environment, and with ...more »

In 2005, the FDA began accepting electronic submissions in lieu of paper. The greatest culprits in submission size are clinical and non-clinical study datasets. To alleviate the stress on FDA reviewers in processing and analyzing all the relevant data, the FDA has begun accepting standardized data, specifically CDISC-aligned data. The eData team noticed that dataset sizes have increased at an alarming pace, placing an ...more »

These words were spoken by Abraham Lincoln in the Gettysburg Address on November 19, 1863. Here we are in the United States 147 years, 260 days later. We are watching Congress. At this second, we are $14,546,716,998,177 in debt. It took me 6 seconds to type that number, and the debt raised $262,554(Over 260 THOUSAND DOLLARS!!!) while I was typing. We have to get a handle on our spending in the Federal Government. ...more »

On command-level annual personnel reports, include a line to document the percent spent compared to the prior commander. Use an entire line to document unusual circumstances such as major storm events which may necessate extra expenditure. Reward commanders who are thrifty (yet fully accomplish the mission) appropriately, such as by accelerating their career paths. Promote them faster than commanders who spend more ...more »

Statistics show that 91% of Americans now use cell phones. Over 35% of Americans now own a smart phone. There is an App for everything these days. The VA has a great website online. There are a lot of private companies that have Apps that give VA information. The VA should develop this App to include information such as: *MyVA; *Check Status of Claim; VA Medical Center Appointment Reminder; FAQ’s; Most Popular ...more »

There should be 1 Web Site that shows where all Federal Tax Money is spent every year. Just like a business, the investors (taxpayers) deserve to know how their business (government) is performing. The expenditures should be broken down as: Medicare/Medicaid $XXXXXXXXXXXX Social Security $XXXXXXXXXXX Defense Spending $XXXXXXXXXXX etc. The Taxpayer could click on the above category and get specifics within that category. ...more »

Currently there are more than 70 federal agencies dealing and/or involved with statistical analysis and data collections. Within the Department of Commerce alone, there are two statistical agencies: Bureau of the Census (Census) and Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA). At the Department of Labor, there is another agency, Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS), performing similar but slightly different statistical functions for ...more »

Lets hire an productivity consultant agency to find the departments and parts of Government that are redundant or unproductive and eliminate all the parts that are not needed. If we actually do this it will cut the size of Government by probably 1/3 at least!!! It would save billions! (might hurt the unemployment statistics tho....) (But if they are not working productively then why should tax payers have to pay for it?!) ...more »