SAVE Award 2011 Ideas

Each day we send letters via certified mail in order to track the delivery or failed delivery of certain critical documents. However, it appears that the certified mail cost per letter is higher then the cost to send the same material via the private contract carrier (UPS, FedEx, etc.) under currently negoitiated contracts. These contract carriers are able to provide the same level of tracking services. Additionally,... more »

Ever since the post office installed mail pods in the neighborhood, I only stop and get the mail twice a week. I don't miss anything so why not just cut back at least one day on mail delivery.

As I was seaching the USPS website, trying to figure out how to fill out a certified mail w/return receipt form, I noticed that the return receipt can be delivered electronically, via email, for over a dollar less than receiving the little receipt back in the mail. If every agency could save a dollar on each certified letter then they had to send as "return receipt requested", the government could save a bundle of money... more »

DOJ's Office of Legal Education produces very authoritative and helpful manuals in a variety of subject matter areas for prosecutors/trial attorneys. They then update, produce and mail thousands of these books every year to prosecutors across the country who don't even read them because a lot of material is online in USABOOK and other online DOJ resources. These books particularly helpful pre-trial/investigation stage... more »

This proposal suggests that the government could save 19% on envelope costs with a small change in the process used to manufacture them.

Each yellow "interoffice mail" envelope has eight holes punched through it. These holes are convenient because they allow one to see whether the envelope is empty, but they are a major contributor to waste. Why? Because often the employees using the envelope refuse to write in the spaces... more »

There should be some sort of guidlines about what type of shipping is to be used when sending mail from one office to another within our agency or even outside the agency and I would suspect other agencies & departments. In the USFS many offices are just not in a "next day" location but yet we still utilize next day or express knowing it will take at least two days to get to it's destination. I can fully understand... more »

For OCONUS bases, the U.S. military transports all mail for their service members. Much of this mail ends up being junk or bulk mail. This consists of coupons, free magazines, advertisements, etc which the service member cannot use for the most part anyways. For certain bulk/junk mail it is shipped 1st class to members. Both of these mailing options increase cost where no real demand for these items exist.

It has been... more »

Reduce mail delivery to 4 days per week (or less). Much commerce and transactions are handled electronically now. Daily mail delivery is no longer necessary. If someone needs that capability a post office box delivery can be provided.

During the course of a Trust Fund Interview, we request Tax Returns from the Service Center. This is mainly so we can verify who is signing Returns.
1) We copy the return
2) Send the return back to service center

How we can save
- Scan Returns and send to Revenue Officers

Estimated Costs
$10 (Mail/UPS per return request)
x 10 (requests per yr)
x 5000 Revenue Officers

$500,000 Estimated Savings (and I don't have... more »

It is a waste of money and labor to mail printed material. Use electronic file transfer, post on shared drive, or post on a web site.

A high volume of mail is sent between offices and claimants at Social Security. Every regular letter is .44 cents or more depending on weight. Every subpoena request costs over $5. Proffer letters sent to representatives average $1 or more. The biggest expense is mailing copies of paper evidence for a claimant who is incarcerated. Also, if we recieve evidence from a correctional facility for a claimant who is still incarcerated,... more »

My idea is to create a bureau within GSA to handle all FOIA referrals. If you are unfamilar with the FOIA process, a referral is when one agency decides that it has no sensitivies in the document however, before it can be released, it should be sent to a different agency that may object to the release of certain material. An example of this at DoS is we receive a request for documents pertaining to an individual's visa... more »

Have interoffice envelopes that have a better system of being labeled for routes. My thought is tags that attach with a twist tie, or maybe use different colors for different departments. Currently we use a ton of envelopes that must be discarded early because people will just skip a few boxes to address the destination. And when the 20 or 40 routes have been used and the envelopes are still good, they get thrown away.... more »

The mail system within each office should be evaluated to determine if there is room for improvement. In our office, we are evaluating whether or not to keep our Pitney Bowes contract for the mail stamping machine. We spend over $600 a quarter to rent this machine and then pay for regular priced postage on top of that. Our office has less than 30 people in it and sends out limited amounts of mail. It would be more practical... more »

Why are we not using the US Postal Service?

 

Why are we using UPS and FedEx to ship packages, when we have the postal service that is perfectly capable to handle our needs?

 

Not only will using the US Postal Service save the government money, but I believe that the US Postal Service will do an even better job than their commercial competitors that we are currently using.