SAVE Award 2011 Ideas

At the NASA Glenn Research Center, it's difficult to find parking anywhere on lab. Many people drive a huge 4-door sedan or SUV, just to drive themselves to work. For many suburbs, RTA buses are not spaced optimally for us and using them takes too long to get to work.

I propose finding under-utilized parking lots at checkpoints strategically located miles away from federal workplaces and use them for employee parking.... more »

Employees who are fired for misconduct or poor performance often submit frivolous EEO complaints. They do this as retaliation, or in an effort to recieve (an unjustified) settlement due to the enormous expense that the government must absorb to investigate these claims. It is often cheaper for the government to pay a settlement even when no discrimination has actually occured. When such a claim is found to be clearly... more »

By adjusting the operating hours of the northern Ports of Entry to mirror those of the CBSA ports would save millions of dollars annually in wages, overtime, and operating costs. For example, adjusting the operating hours of a few ports in one small northern state would save approximately 1.5 million in wages alone, not including overtime or operating costs. Multiply this to the entire northern border and the savings... 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 »

Create an electronic database for forms and archives. Scan current archived paper documents into a database to save storage costs, manpower, and paper resources. Use electronic standard government forms to eliminate paper usage and storage costs. This will also allow for "virtual" audits to be done remotely with no travel expense. This can apply to all government entities.

One agency's trash is another agency's treasure. Create/improve regional programs responsible for (1) removing, re-purposing, or donating unneeded or excess equipment and inventory (2) and increase visibility of available vacant federal buildings and land.

Here’s an example:
The Department of Veterans Affairs has a vast inventory of underutilized and vacant property, including roughly 7.5 million square feet of vacant... more »

Within almost every waiting area in every Federal building there is a TV. These TV's show HDTV programing with tons of TV channels. This is unnecessary and can be fixed by replacing the current systems with Digital antenna's. These systems also show local HD programming at only the cost of equipment. There is potential to save millions by getting out of contracts with Cable/Satelite providers.

The primary purpose of the limitation on VA compensation and pension in 38 U.S.C. §§ 5313(a) and 1505(a) is to eliminate a double burden on United States taxpayers where an incarcerated veteran is already being supported by government funds provided for the operation of a penal institution.

The legislative history of this issue also notes Congress' concern that the purpose of compensation and pension is to replace... more »

All OHA needs to switch to the BAH system. This would drive the OCONUS housing market to be more competitive, with massive benefits to the Air Force, many benefits to the service members, and even, to a lesser degree, some benefits to the local community. Members have absolutely no incentive for saving the Government money under the OHA system.

Short term estimated savings in Guam alone: $45,000,000+ per year

Long term... more »

Overall Goal

Instead of different military and Government agencies( Navy, USCG, Army, Air Force ) trying to be self sufficient and wanting to have/own various assets to meet their mission needs, these agencies should work together, share and co-ordinate their resources and assets, so that if not as Individual agencies but when united they are self sufficient.

Issue:
Various Government agencies own/acquire assets such... more »

Overall Goal

Instead of different military and Government agencies( Navy, USCG, Army, Air Force ) trying to be self sufficient and wanting to have/own various assets to meet their mission needs, these agencies should work together, share and co-ordinate their resources and assets, so that if not as Individual agencies but when united they are self sufficient.

Issue:

Various Government agencies own/acquire assets such... more »

Problem: While GSA’s government-wide travel policies permit Federal employees to take advantage of airlines’ retail sale prices, because the employee must assume risks of cancellation or change fees, employees rarely take advantage of sale ticket prices which are far below the refundable GSA City Pair program fare prices. While city pair fares save as much as 70 percent, that savings is measured against retail fully... more »

Using the open market to book travel will save a lot of money for taxpayers. Encourage employees to save money by allowing them to retain the miles & points earned through booking less expensive travel on their own. Verify possible savings before booking by comparing with quotes from current system.

PROPOSAL:
To save the Federal Government somewhere between $173,000,000 and $598,000,000 (OR MORE) over the next 12 months… by reducing the amount of copier/printer paper consumed and therefore the equivalent: (1) budget expenditure; and (2) paper (i.e. natural resources) wasted.

HYPOTHESIS:
Relatively large savings to the budget could be realized by imposing four simple practices on Executive Branch employees:
1.... more »

In an effort to save tax payer dollars and in the spirit of collaboration between Science Centers and Regional Offices, I would like to explore the idea of possibly using NOAA's small boats for the field work we do at regional offices instead of contracting this work out to private companies. Our field activities typically involve...

* response and restoration activities at large ship grounding sites
* site visits... more »