SAVE Award 2011 Ideas

Currently, an individual with a TS clearance must be completely reinvestigated every five years. This is an expensive and time consuming process that has provided little benefit in rooting out potential spies, terrorists, etc. My suggestion is to do a full reinvestigation every ten years and every five years do just a police and financial records check. This will reduce the manpower and time required and save the government... more »

An entire bureaucracy has been created around official government passports. Within any given agency, including the USDA for whom I work, the cost of acquiring, administering, storing, and mailing the passports back and forth for each international trip, for thousands of employees, is astronomical. To date, nobody within my agency has been able to provide a satisfactory answer to the question, “Why?” A typical tourist... more »

Require ALL US citizens to serve the country (military, peace corps, vista, PHS, etc) for a minimum of two years (either on graduation for high school, college, or professional school). This is long overdue and would provide numerous benefits to the individuals and reduce government expenditures for recruiting, etc.

Currently it takes several hours to process a travel authorization or claim on DTS. It is so much easier using a commercial site. Nothing about DTS is user friendly. Need to fix and simplify so we stop wasting an inordinate amount of time.

I propose that when military members are sent TDY they be required to share quarters or hotel rooms with one other member, providing they do not have to share the same bed, are of equal rank and the same gender.

When my unit was sent on a mission for a few weeks, we stayed at a hotel and each member got their own room which was equipped with two beds. My brother, also in my unit, was sent TDY with us and we decided to... more »

There should be a routine formal review process inserted into the Universal Urgent Need Statement (UUNS) process following approval of a material solution and its fielding. Since the UUNS is an exceptional request from a commander for a critically needed warfighting capability, a material solution provided through a rapid acquisition process that lacks the review process found in a Program of Record (POR) and can be... more »

The core mission of the Naval Air Warfare Centers is to provide the highest-performing weapons systems at an affordable cost to the Warfighter. It is not the core mission to sustain vast lawns in the desert. The Department of Defense should cut landscaping costs and divert that savings into furthering the development of weapons systems. We will not win the next war by having the best lawns in the world. Beautiful,... more »

Creating a collateral duty within a unit (unpaid) that focuses on minimizing the carbon and resource waste one generally sees in the Federal government to both improve energy consumption and save money would improve and promote resource management. One way of avoiding cuts in manning is to reduce costs- everywhere you can.
Education for this person could be similar in structure to what is now the SSO and security manager... more »

46.504 Certificate of conformance (CoC) may be used in certain instances instead of source inspection at the discretion of the contracting officer if the following conditions apply: (a) Acceptance on the basis of a contractor’s certificate of conformance is in the Government’s interest. (b)(1) Small losses would be incurred in the event of a defect; or (2) Because of the contractor’s reputation or past performance, it... more »

We are encouraged to spend more money than necessary. By doing this, we are rewarded by more money for the following fiscal year (instead of punished). Businesses work the opposite way. It seems ludicrous to encourage waste instead of rewarding efficiency.

Each year, on the anniversary date of the enlisted military member, they recieve a clothing allowance. Based upon the branch of service and sex of the member, they recieve between 388.80 - 608.40. (www.military.com)

As of 31 May 2011, the Department of Defense had 1,182,849 enlisted members worldwide from all services. (DoD Personnle and military casualty statistics)

If the U.S. would do away with this automatic... more »

The large number of DoD Directives & Instructions existing within the Department of Defense today establishes rules that regulate/control business operations and procedures. As the “total number” and total “word content” of Directives and Instructions increase, there is a corresponding growth in the administrative burden imposed upon the Government workforce. Unless measures are taken to curb the growth and reduce the... more »

TARGET: US Coast Guard, US Navy, US Army, US Marines, US Air Force, other government agencies

ISSUE: US Armed Services have a time honored tradition of Change of Command Ceremonies. These formal dignified events illustrate the military nature of the US Armed Services and provide participants with an understanding of the uninterrupted nature and total responsibility of military command. It is common for a number of... more »