SAVE Award 2011 Ideas

Routinely the DOJ and US Attorneys Office will subpoena Federal employees to testify in cases outside of the employee's geographical work area.

These cases can often be cross country in nature as currently my office on the West Coast is working to find funding to send an employee to the East Coast for under one hour of general background testimony.

A cross country flight and hotel for less than one hour of general testimony.... more »

SWAG

Stuff We All Get

You have seen it in your unit’s storage or at a recruiting event. We give it out to visitors at trade shows or at an unit open house event.

Coffee cups, calendars, key chains, pens, challenge coins, you name it and the only thing in common is the sticker on the bottom; Made in China.

It is time to impose immediate legislation that will prohibit the purchase of foreign made items for official... more »

Currently; Border Patrol, CBP, FPS, ICE, TSA and the US Coast Guard have their own facilities, policy, processes, and specialist personnel to handle seized property and contraband.

By consolidating all of these facilities and processes into one DHS seized property system, cost savings and efficiency will occur.

Why does ICE need a seized property vault in the same geographical location as CBP?

Consolidate these facilities... more »

GSA has been conducting Tenant Satisfaction Surveys for many years (see http://www.gsa.gov/portal/content/100239 and http://www.gsa.gov/portal/content/102239). They often hand-deliver the paper surveys to targeted tenants – all employees in the facility – and ask them to complete them and mail them to Gallup for tabulation or to complete the survey on line. GSA provides gifts to tenants along with the surveys. My suggestion... more »

I drove by the Department of Education off of Penn Avenue one evening , around 8pm and there were so many lights on in the building I thought it was 8am. All government building lights should switched over to sensored lighting. It was disheartening to see all that money wasted to help people read and there are no people there to read. Let's start DOING!

Prior to the creation of the DHS, the former US Customs Service was the primary entity for inspecting inbound and outbound foreign cargo at US International airports as well as compliance and control of related bonded facilities.

The events of September 11, 2001 resulted in the creation of DHS as well as the TSA with the consolidation of the Customs Service into CBP. Since 2001 the TSA has grown and expanded in mission... more »

Use all of our office space. We rent large SQ FT with not enough people to fill it.

If we rent large, use it. The govt is giving money away again.

The govt cannot afford to live in the nice neighborhood anymore. Humble pie.

Government agencies conduct a significant amount of travel and transportation activities through private rental car companies, under travel regulations and rental terms established by GSA. GSA could establish minimum fuel economy standards that would apply to government car rentals for gasoline powered cars. A vehicle rented under a government rental car contract would need to meet the fuel economy standards specified... more »

If I can fly out of a closer airport, at a cheaper price, I should be able to do so. I cannot understand why GSA will mandate me to drive 1.5 hrs to another airport, pay more for the flight, AND pay for parking? It's an absurd practice that needs to be stopped immediately.

While I understand there's a need to support groups such as the blind associations, there's also a financial responsibility to taxpayers. If there is a cheaper vendor than one of these special interest groups, then we should be able to use them. The practice might have been acceptable in the past, but due to the economy, it cannot continue.

We are required to submit vehicle mileages for all GSA vehicles on a monthly basis. In our office of approximately 80 employees, we currently have 26 GSA vehicles. The Vehicles are usually in the field when the email request to retrieve mileages goes out.
It seems like there should be a way to capture the mileage without involving so many employees because whenever fuel is purchased using the fleet credit card, the odometer... more »

One of the largest issues is the complexity in getting to purchase materials/office equipment etc. locally. We are essentially forced to order from the corporations such as Unicor and GSA that charge ridiculous prices for their items. While perusing the website in order to purchase a lamp, I came across a 1300.00 lamp! Now I ask, what lamp is worth 1300 when you could easily drive to a local store, purchase an effective,... more »

Recognize that POV travel is less expensive than GOV travel, and reimburse appropriately. A new AAA study shows the cost to own and operate a sedan rose nearly 2 cents a mile to 58.5 cents per mile. As a high-mileage driver the government had been reimbursing me (to use my POV for government business) 19 cents per mile, which is down from the 28.5 cents per mile that was reimbursed in prior years (while actual costs have... more »

Periodically (annual, every 3 yrs, 5 yrs, etc.) internal policy and regulations require GSA to review the programs used to manage Federal Facilities (environmental, security, financial, etc.). GSA invented the MARS program years ago as a comprehensive inspection every 3-5 yrs of each Fed Facility. MARS inspections involve reps from every regional program traveling to and touring each facility to determine how the GSA... more »

Annually, GSA costs us money. They control when we renew our lease and they write the lease. In some cases they are also paid the rent agreed upon in the lease. This is circular and quite costly. The same is true for GSA vehicles. They charge us and decide when we have to return the vehicle. Then the process of returning the vehicle costs us both time and money- some of that money is paid to GSA. Why do they exist? I... more »