SAVE Award 2011 Ideas

Provide IT departments tablet units, such as Cisco Cius, Apple IPAD, Samsung Galaxy or Blackberry Tablet units which may be used to load presentation and other meeting materials on to stop the use of handouts in meetings. Tablets with wireless capability not only eliminate the handout paper, but also the note taking papers which either clutter desks or fill recycling containers.

Various Federal Government entities produce huge amounts of paperwork, most of which are simply printouts of documents that are also kept electronically. Through acts such as the Federal Records Act, the Government is required to keep records of a host of manners.

My proposal is to no longer deposit any non-original paper documents to the Federal Records Center. The Federal Records Center should only accept electronic... more »

Instead of printing a performance plan for review, then another with changes for signature, then a copy with signatures, then a copy for annual review and so forth, provide online performance plans, with electronic password protected signatures which go right into eopf.

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 »

My agency releases Principal Federal Economic Indicator data to the press via lockups. At these events, agency representatives carry stacks and stacks of paper with details like "the last time" something happened or a number was that high, how this number "compares to past numbers", etc. When someone asks a question, they have to dig through this material to find the answer as all lockups are precisely timed.

After... more »

Electronically alert clerks about scheduling needs, rather than automatically printing orders.

At this VA medical center, any time an order (e.g., labs, clinic appt, xray) is entered in the electronic patient chart (GUI/CPRS) it is automatically printed. It prints near the staff who enter the appointments. The purpose is to alert clerks that an appt needs entered in the appt software (CPRS). Often it may only be a... more »

There is massive amount of paper waste being generated by the federal government and its employees. People print out so many things unnecessarily and also print out personal items at work. The president should issue an executive order requiring all agencies to reduce paper consumption by at least 10%. This would bring heightened awareness to the waste and make everyone think twice about whether or not they really need... more »

If you don't have it you can't waste it. More paper is wasted on meetings, weekly reports, gantt charts, phone lists, status updates etc. Instead of providing an endless amount of printing paper, provide finite amounts monthly, once it's gone it's gone until the next ration arrives.

When printing copies of medical files from the Computerized Patient Record System (CPRS) the current program prints a cover page that contains PII that has no purpose for office use for every Progress Note printed. Since most Progress Notes are only one page long, deletion of this cover page from the program would typically result in a 50% reduction of the paper used.

A cost saving change in how refunds are processed and applied to Veterans by the Department of Veterans Affairs based upon many discriminating economic factors, would save the U.S Government & Department of Veterans Affairs hundreds of thousands of dollars, if not more. The problem is that refunds are processed to veterans under a dollar amount that does not make it cost effective or efficient for the VA to process and... more »

As federal agents we must administratively process all of our apprehension requiring a lot of paperwork. These files must be mistake free and many mistakes are made in the process due to human error and electronic program errors. As employees we complete the documents and submit them to our supervisors for review, errors are pointed out and corrections must be made. Each time an error is found paper is wasted and ultimately... more »

Eliminate billions of paper files by making it mandatory for all government agency workers using the “GovTrip” travel program to upload all documents as PDFs onto the server, thereby creating a single source for all government travel documents.

PROBLEM: Our administrative personnel require us to hand-deliver manila files with printed out documents for ALL travel. This requires preparers to print out all electronic files,... more »

The Executive Secretariat at the DOE is the office through which all formal correspondence with outside entities is screened for quality control prior to sending the response. However, their process is extremely flawed with its draconian rules which requires paper submission of ALL materials remotely related to such a formal correspondence.

For instance, if an outside entity has a question about an EPA rule, the formal... more »

I believe in being responsible for everything you do and say. And if we say we want to have a greener world then we should ACT on it and NOT just SAY it. Having said that, even though we are on our way to be in a paperless work environment, the truth is that we are not there yet and most people truly do want to have a greener world but just dont act upon it!

The reality is that copies are still printed for various uses:... more »

CBP has an enormous work force and with that an enormous waste of paper. Everything is electronically saved present day, but CBP requires paper copies of everything creating an abundance that ultimately ends up in waste bins w/in a few short years anyway. I think we should reduce the paper trail to a bare minimum, everything can be saved electronically. If paper is needed, it can always be printed later, ultimately it... more »