SAVE Award 2011 Ideas

Every year federal employees take excessive time off in order to avoid losing their extra leave at the end of the year.

Many of these employees would prefer to trade in some of their leave for cash rather than taking time off and allowing their work to simply pile up while they are gone.

By giving Federal employees the option of trading in some of their leave for 70% of their normal salary, the government would... more »

As the end of a fiscal year approaches, many government agencies have funds remaining in their budget. There is an impression among agencies system wide that they must ‘use or lose’ the balance or the following fiscal year their budget will be drastically reduced. An alternative that would reduce the rush to spend at the end of the fiscal year is simple; donate a percentage of the unspent funds to CFC with the balance... more »

At the end of every year, your uniform allowance becomes use or lose.

Minimize the allowance slightly and allow for rollover of unused moneys, and people would feel less compelled to spend it, and may even promote the saving of unused moneys.

Also implement uniform recycling.

I once tried to return a bunch of old uniforms, that no longer fit, or were unused because they weren't the right size. I was not looking for... more »

Many people save their leave until they "have" to use it during busy times when they are needed in the office - WORKING.

Allow the donation of the value of excess annual leave directly to deficit reduction. Employees could elect to donate their excess annual leave. Also, the value of all lost annual leave could be used to reduce the federal deficit.

At the end of each payroll calendar year employees with leave balances over the allowed amount are placed in a "use or lose" status. Often times the leave is in fact lost if they do not make arrangements to carry over their balance, donate the leave, or use it; however each of these options requires action on the employees' part including the option to donate the leave.

I believe the unused time should automatically... more »

Instead of punishing Agencies for giving back money at the end of the budget year, reward them. Currently, there is no incentive for an Agency to give money back at the end of the year. Every year there is a mass spending (a lot of times on items that are not currently needed) just so we don't give money back. This is done because currently if you do give money back then the next year's budget is almost always cut... more »

I have watched wasteful spending for the past 11 years. I currently work at a VA hospital and it is no different than the other places I have worked when it deals with the end of the fiscal year "rush". Say a VA hospital, just throwing a number out there to get a point across, has $100,000 left and the fiscal year is coming to an end. I have witnessed wasteful spending on desks, chairs, filing cabnets, computers and... more »

Every end of the fiscal year, federal agencies rush to spend any leftover money to ensure they at least have the same budget the next year. Basically, there is a strong incentive to spend as much money as possible, resulting in terribly wasteful spending. I propose several measures be implemented to incentivize saving budget money:

1. Make sure that any established ceiling is not lowered simply due to a lack of spending.... more »

The current process to excess property is extremely time consuming and burdensome on property officers. For property under $10,000 federal offices do not receive any return on investment by disposing of property through GSAXcess. The items that are no longer useful or phased out tend to be pushed to the out of site out of mind corner.

Agencies could receive a monetary return on their time and energy to excess property... more »