SAVE Award 2011 Ideas

Currently, the U.S. government spends in excess of $1 billion annually to license software -- software that produces documents that are difficult to access after a few years because the new version of the software often doesn't work with the older documents. Since the document formats are proprietary, we have no way to access these documents other than by maintaining the unsupported older software. This has made transparency... more »

CIO staff should be linked in looser affiliations throughout their agencies/departments. A few central positions could be maintained for basic network services, but the rest of the staff should sit and work within lower level groups in the organization. The non-IT staff need closer links to those that know what is technologically available, and how to organize information in an efficient way.

In my agency, and I presume others, the telework policy and the IT security policy directly contradict each other. DOT and other organizations need to support telework and IT security uniformly by validating all relevant policies against each other to make sure that the necessary and relevant guidance is uniform. This will reduce confusion during planning and implementation allowing for maximum participation in telework,... more »

Contract with Dell costs the government $1,000+ per year for a $400 computer and $100 worth of software. This is a huge amount of waste.

So many agencies and Departments develop their own IT security training that all employees have to take annually. How much do all these programs, which are new each year, cost? Why not just have one government-wide computer security training program? We would save millions in duplicated effort and increase uniformity of security standards.

Maintain an agency surplus for office supplies and equipment that offices can use to meet their needs. Likewise, offices can add to that surplus every 6 months, by combing through their own supplies and equipment which is not used.

I'm the purchasing agent and equipment inventory coordinator for my office. We have less than 150 employees who make little effort to request items which would save any money to the Government.... more »

In one hand is my personal smart phone. I love it. I pay for unlimited voice and data with this phone. I can surf freely and without guilt that I'm wasting government money when I do so. It's also faster and more flexible than...what I hold in my other hand, my blackberry. I hate it. I only use it for government business which is largely viewing e-mails when I'm off site. So I carry two of these devices around.... more »

Per the Federal Information Security Management Act (FISMA), federal information systems must be hardened according to security configuration standards such as the Federal Desktop Core Configuration (FDCC), the U.S. Government Configuration Baseline (USGCB), and the Center for Internet Security (CIS) benchmarks.

Government (and contractor) IT shops spend countless hours configuring new and existing systems to ensure... more »

Combine all the federal agencies data under one roof. Build a data powerhouse a state-of-the-art facility that provides secure data processing services to federal agencies. The data powerhouse manages mainframe and server operations, monitors the wide area network and provides key service desk, technical support and disaster recovery services for many of the federal governments mission-critical applications.
The Federal... more »

Save millions increase productivity by allowing Unexpected Flexiplace. Speed up the process of replenishment of PC's for those employees who will get a laptop and qualify for any type flexiplace before winter of 2011. MITS agreements at the IRS are in place but replenishment was set at 3 years. There are places the replaced pc can be used therefore there would be no loss of money Laptops across the nation are financially... more »

If an employee has a made, has made it through security and can access a government computer to insert their own cac card, chances are they have a need to access some type of information on this computer. If employees could use their cac card to login to a computer program it would save so many hours and hundreds of thousands of dollars spent wasting time trying to login and resetting their password when they guess wrong... more »

Right now, many agencies outsource their most vital IT functions to contractors. These contractors code programs but do not give Federal employees access to the coding. (In some cases, they don't even grant them access to query tools, thus monopolizing even the query process.) In effect, the contractor is holding the agency's information hostage for a continuing fee. In addition to being expensive, this is dangerous;... more »

In the name of saving money the USFS and I would guess other agencies created help desks for IT issues. Every time we call that number the FS is charged a fee. It gets frustrating when the person on the phone then cannot help you and has to refer you to the next level. Then I get a phone call from the IT person sitting upstairs that she is coming right down to fix the problem. Really?????? These are the same... more »

The information technology (IT) infrastructure, sometimes referred to as the Global Information Grid (GIG) - specifically servers, networks, network area storage, and information transport/transmission costs, and information assurance (IA) costs, should be funded at the DoD level at all DoD facilities and support activities for use by all DoD programs at that facility. Disallow the expense for the IT/IA costs at the... more »

Many of the computers running on government networks are left on, running at full power 24/7, yet they are only used between 5-8 hours per day. This is like leaving a 100 watt light bulb on all the time, even when no one is in the room. Simply mandate that all local IT staff enable the most efficient Energy Star settings on every computer.