SAVE Award 2011 Ideas

The government wastes a ton of money by restricting how travel is arranged. I had to fly from Anchorage to Miami a couple years ago and using the government mandated travel company (SATO) the ticket cost a little over $2,000 - plus a $37 booking fee. For the sake of comparison, I went to Orbitz and found the exact same flights for about $700. A co-worker recently needed to book a car for her travel and was told the... more »

Offices should purchase Metro farecards to be used by DC area employees for local travel such as for training. The way travel is processed now, it costs almost double the travel cost to reimburse the employee. My travel cost $44 to attend 3 days of training in DC, and it took 2 months, 4 employees, and cost fees of $8 or $28 to process the travel voucher through the GovTrip program.

Have an income requirement for reception of free eyeglasses for ALL veterans. Currently all veterans, whether service connected or not can receive free eyeglasses every year and get unlimited replacements free of charge. Cost shift for the higher income patients and only give pone pair a year free for lower income veterans.

ENERGY STAR refrigerators pay for themselves and start saving money in a short period of time.

Eliminate all unneeded travel. Training should be attended locally or online when available. Meetings should be held at central locations, at a relevant site or via phone.

Reuse existing buildings when possible. Existing building use is usually more cost effective and is more conserving of resources. It is wasteful to tear down buildings that can be used productively.

OSHA issues annual updates to the code of federal regulations in hard copy books. The shipping costs for 25 books can be very costly due to the weight of the package. In addition, the books become outdated when a new standard is issued, which can occur on a periodic basis.

Suggested idea - stop publishing the paper copy of the OSHA code of federal regulations (i.e. 29 CFR 1910, 1915, 1917, 1918 and 1926). Start distributing... more »

If ordered in large volumes to replace existing cards and new cards, the paper to plastic migration would only be separated by pennies due the the millions being ordered.

The next generation card would last longer, and your parents and/or grand parents would not have to laminate them!

Newer security features could be incorporated to prevent replication (which can be achieved quite easily with the current paper card),... more »

We buy computers from Dell. Each computer comes with a license from Microsoft. (Sticker with license key) We then buy an Enterprise license to install Windows (any version) on that computer. Dell sells computers without Windows. We can buy our computers without Microsoft licenses, and then install our Enterprise software. (Volume Licensing)

We never use the preinstalled version, and we never use the license key we pay... more »

If the Presdient pledged to veto every unbalanced budget, and followed through with this threat for two terms...
or Congress could simply pass a balanced budget bill, maybe for only ten years just to see how it works. However, it is not in any individual legislator's interest to balance the budget. This is the classic "tragedy of the commons" secnario where we all see that conservation is necessary, but each person... more »

We should be using vendors who offer the best price on the same product. We spend alot of time shopping emall for the item when the price turns out to be significantly higher than from a local vendor. We should give back to our community through local purchases whenever possible.

When a piece of legislation is brought before a legislative body (either the House or the Senate), it is nothing short of bribery to vote swap (i.e., I'll vote for your bill if you vote for mine; or I'll vote for your bill if you give my district X dollars via an unrelated amendment).

Two rules could fix this:
1) No off-the-record conversations about pending legislation (ex parte communication). It is simply unfair... more »

Within an agency, each building will decide on one day per month to shut down operations. This effort will save energy and reduce the agency's carbon footprint, directly reducing energy and real estate costs.

 

Employees will be encouraged to telework, which contributes to happier employees with better work/life balances.

Prove that high ranked (highly liked) ideas are submitted to agencies by posting the results of the 2011 SAVE Award campaign to the White House website.

If my information is correct, the US Government has had trillions of dollars in cash printed with no sure way to shore up the value of the US dollar. While done early on in the whole credit debocal the inflation which would normally step in an hurt the value of our currancy was offset. Right now with the amount of paper money in the system, and banks still not loaning it out, I believe it is time for the Fed to start... more »