SAVE Award 2011 Ideas

By scanning and posting copies of reports on line (i.e., H: drive) for Resident Posts (RP's), rather than copying and mailing; it would save the cost of paper, postage, toner, and equipment wear-and-tear. In addition, scanning rather than mailing reports would save many man hours (labor costs), as well as preparation time for mailing. On the receiving end, it would save labor costs by eliminating the amount of filing,... more »

ICE-HSI utilizes a form called an ICE Form 73-293. This form is a 6 page carbon copy document. Currently it is the only form in our agency that requires a typewriter to complete. It is estimated that tens of thousands of these forms are submitted each year. The carbon-copy format also makes mistakes absolute, thus requiring one to waste several forms before submitting a final copy. A portion of this form also has... more »

SSA Policy GN 02410.017 requires that an IRS form W4-v (request for voluntary tax withholding) be filled out before SSA can process a VTW request. SSA then is instructed to destroy the form and not retain record of the document. I believe it would be more advantageous to the agency if the request for VTW could be done verbally and attested, rather than requiring a paper document that is not retained. This change could... more »

We frequently have to send Veterans files to the Bureau of Veterans Affairs in Washington DC for appeals review. The files contain anywhere from 1 folder to as many as 25. Total shipping weight may be anywhere from 2 ibs to as much as 100 lbs.

In most cases, once we receive notice from the BVA to send a particular case, we have up to 10 business days to get the file to BVA. We usually send the files via UPS with... more »

Federal agencies collectively send out large quantities of mail, spending upwards of one billion dollars each year with the United States Postal Service. Much of this mail is sent out at full price, despite the fact that the Postal Service offers sizable discounts for mailers who prepare and presort their mail.

A recent paper estimates savings of more than $100 million per year from presorting of federal agency mail.... more »

Federal agencies send out large quantities of large envelopes, which are referred to by the Postal Service as “flats”. Flats are more costly to mail than ordinary letters because they are sorted and processed on different Postal Service machines and cannot pass through the high speed letter sorting equipment.

Many items that agencies send in large envelopes can actually be sent as letters. In fact, almost any papers... more »