Browse Ideas with tag 'duplication':

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  Combining/Streamlining Idea #100,000,001

  I think on whole we break down the branches farther than we need to. I work for the USDA Agriculture Marketing Service, Livestock and Seed Market News. There are also a Poultry Market New, Cotton and Tobacco, Fruits and Vegitables Market News, and Dairy Market News branches. As these various branches are shrinking and consolidating more and more over the years ANYWAY, why not combine into one or two? Who are just ...more »

  I think on whole we break down the branches farther than we need to. I work for the USDA Agriculture Marketing Service, Livestock and Seed Market News. There are also a Poultry Market New, Cotton and Tobacco, Fruits and Vegitables Market News, and Dairy Market News branches. As these various branches are shrinking and consolidating more and more over the years ANYWAY, why not combine into one or two? Who are just creating administrative waste by OVER diversifying. Cotton, Tobacco, Seed/Grain, Fruits and Veggies can all be in one branch while Livestock, Dairy, and Poultry can all be in one branch. I hate to eliminate jobs, but this is very wasteful. Maybe have one branch chief and two or three assistant branch chiefs since they will have more employees to oversee. Also, someone should evaluate the difference in Market News vs. NASS. In my opinion these two branches are very similar. In fact, as a market reporter, I often get questions from the industry asking what the difference in our numbers vs NASS numbers. Other times we use the data NASS collects to create or enhance our reports. Again, this duplication only creates more overhead that aggravates taxpayers. Happy budget trimming.

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  Submitted by Community Member 2 years ago

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  Increasing Trade, Exports, and Overall Competitiveness »

  Fed Ex and the Post Office

  Since the federal Post Office is in such a depressed state with their budgets. I propose that all federal agencies use them for shipping and the agencies using the would get a discount. We use Fed Ex due to my agency having a contract with them and the yearly cost for just my office is over 20k a year....

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  Submitted by Community Member 2 years ago

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  Eliminate all law libraries

  With Westlaw and Lexis available in every government law office, there is no reason to have hard copies of law books. Anything can be obtained online, and if a hard copy is needed for some reason, it could be obtained by loan from a public library. This will also save on office space, rent, paper waste, dusting, etc.

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  Submitted by Community Member 2 years ago

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  Send Only Requested Supplies/Laboratory Sample Boxes

  Laboratory sample boxes which are expensive to dispatch from labs to inspected facilities and back again are often going back and forth both empty and unnecessarily. There could be better communication among multiple labs (overlap/duplication?) to stop sending cumbersome boxes after a sampling set has been completed. Additionally, I have seen the request and fulfilled obligation to FedEx numerous large boxes from a ...more »

  Laboratory sample boxes which are expensive to dispatch from labs to inspected facilities and back again are often going back and forth both empty and unnecessarily. There could be better communication among multiple labs (overlap/duplication?) to stop sending cumbersome boxes after a sampling set has been completed. Additionally, I have seen the request and fulfilled obligation to FedEx numerous large boxes from a plant where they are no longer needed back to the lab, only to have the lab send the boxes all back to the same plant! Why even send the boxes back to the lab when the boxes could be sent directly from the plant not needing them to a plant that needs them. I believe that only sending requested materials rather than arbitrarily sending supplies could save a ton of money, time, and effort.

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  Submitted by Community Member 2 years ago

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  Electronic Post Orders

  I would like to incorporate a procedure to place Correctional Services Post Orders on computer Desk Top for staff to review. The Post Orders would include the 1st 4 sections. The Signature Sheets would still be maintained both on-site and in the Captain's Office. Hard copies would be required for posts not having computer access. The cost savings would be for paper, printers, copiers, toner and the time necessary ...more »

  I would like to incorporate a procedure to place Correctional Services Post Orders on computer Desk Top for staff to review. The Post Orders would include the 1st 4 sections. The Signature Sheets would still be maintained both on-site and in the Captain's Office. Hard copies would be required for posts not having computer access. The cost savings would be for paper, printers, copiers, toner and the time necessary to print and copy and replace each quarter. This could be extended to all Bureau of Prison facilities.

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  Submitted by Community Member 2 years ago

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  Increasing Trade, Exports, and Overall Competitiveness »

  Set Ambitious Export Goal

  We need to have the President set an ambitious export goal. Like increase so much by this date.

  This should be the goal of all executives - even states. They should want the US to lead the world in goods and services.

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  Submitted by Community Member 2 years ago

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  Ensure All Scheduled Maintenance is Scheduled Effectively

  I know in my agency, The National Weather Service, all scheduled maintenance on our observations systems such as the radars, the automated observation systems (ASOS), NWR transmitters, and other equipment follows a strict "compounding" maintenance schedule as opposed to a flexible, "sliding" scheduling system. The compounding system creates much more maintenance then is needed. It is easy for management to defend strict, ...more »

  I know in my agency, The National Weather Service, all scheduled maintenance on our observations systems such as the radars, the automated observation systems (ASOS), NWR transmitters, and other equipment follows a strict "compounding" maintenance schedule as opposed to a flexible, "sliding" scheduling system. The compounding system creates much more maintenance then is needed. It is easy for management to defend strict, compounding maintenance scheduling but it is actually the most innefficienct way to do it. As an example; Let's assume the radar at an office is due for quarterly PM (preventative maintenance) on March 1st. With a compounding schedule, this job may be accomplished on March 15th, but will be rescheduled for June 1st - a full two weeks before it is actually due the next time - there's no flexibility. (by the way, PMs are usually late for one reason or another). The radar really only needs quarterly maintenance done at a minimum 90-days AFTER the last 90-day PM, so after accomplishing the PM on March 15th, the scheduling system should really "slide" the next scheduled 90-day to June 15th. This ensures that maintenance is not done before it is needed. Likewise, if a the 90-day PM is performed two weeks ahead of time, Feb 15th, then the new scheduled 90-day PM should be scheduled for May 15th - 90 days after the last PM. Suffice to say, sliding scheduling would save money and ensure maintenance is done when it is supposed to, and with enough flexibility to make sense. I would have to guess we'd see a significant savings with sliding scheduling over compounding scheduling.

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  Submitted by Community Member 2 years ago

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  Use All-Agency Check Before Travel Expenses

  The $5M wasteful spending for "training" in Atlanta was a black eye for government work. It wasn't the first time it happened for one thing and for another, that kind of "training" is totally ineffective. The cost was exposed by an ABC news story, but it SHOULD have gone reported by many others who, in one way or another, had a hand in the flagrant abuse of authority. There must be an all-agency checkpoint. Anything ...more »

  The $5M wasteful spending for "training" in Atlanta was a black eye for government work. It wasn't the first time it happened for one thing and for another, that kind of "training" is totally ineffective. The cost was exposed by an ABC news story, but it SHOULD have gone reported by many others who, in one way or another, had a hand in the flagrant abuse of authority. There must be an all-agency checkpoint.

  Anything over a certain dollar amount must be pre-approved by a board outside the agency. No one should limit actual peer training and collaboration, but spending this much money for powerpoint and a big party is flagrant abuse. If a proposed training event can be done better/faster/cheaper closer to home, or with use of webinars and teleconferencing, then those suggestions must be made. Simple design, let the proposal request go via an email form to GSA or OPM, and let it be approved at that level. The people who let this happen should have been disciplined and Travel for this agency should be severely curtailed. If you missed the story, use your home computer to view:

  http://abcnews.go.com/Blotter/party-time-faa-critics-question-million-gathering/story?id=9390933

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  Submitted by Community Member 2 years ago

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  Local Travel Savings

  No local POV or USG resources will be utilized to travel between sites unless all available video linking capabilities are also fully utilized.

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  Submitted by Community Member 2 years ago

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  50 More U.S. Senators

  I normally consider the U.S. Senate to be the adults in the room. Average age is 60.4 (109th ? Congress) and just a few months ago, 1 Senator was in his 90s; and 5 re in their 80s, 19 are in their 70s, 36 are in their 60s, 29 are in their 50s, and 10 are in their 40s. Today there is a significantly larger and more diverse U.S. population and there are too many technological issues to be dealt with. And there seems ...more »

  I normally consider the U.S. Senate to be the adults in the room. Average age is 60.4 (109th ? Congress) and just a few months ago, 1 Senator was in his 90s; and 5 re in their 80s, 19 are in their 70s, 36 are in their 60s, 29 are in their 50s, and 10 are in their 40s. Today there is a significantly larger and more diverse U.S. population and there are too many technological issues to be dealt with. And there seems to be too much power by unelected staff members, so don’t increase staff numbers, just split existing staff numbers with new senators. Would cause the majority to change and all that (2/3rds would be 100 vice 67, etc., etc.), but nothing else needs to change but the quantity. All other terms and conditions of the Constitution, etc., etc., would be modified with the new number after a constitutional amendment.

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  Submitted by Community Member 2 years ago

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  Merging EQuip and VetPro

  VetPro and EQuip are similiar systems in which the background of a potential employee is checked for authentication. When an employee comes on station, he or she has to fill out EQuip and any medical practitioner would need to complete VetPro. The systems require basically the same demographic information and they both require the employee to do their full history. By making these two systems work together, a potential ...more »

  VetPro and EQuip are similiar systems in which the background of a potential employee is checked for authentication. When an employee comes on station, he or she has to fill out EQuip and any medical practitioner would need to complete VetPro. The systems require basically the same demographic information and they both require the employee to do their full history. By making these two systems work together, a potential employee would save time by only submiting into these tedious systems once.

  Two alternatives can come from cooperation. The first option is being able to convert the information from one system to the next so the provider does not have submit the same information twice. The other option is to eliminate the need for EQuip submission on any provider that submits in VetPro. Then have the background screen initiated directly from VetPro. All other employees would need to submit into the EQuip system.

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  Eliminate antitrust duplication

  Both the Department of Justice and the Federal Trade Commission enforce antitrust laws. These functions should be vested in one agency, which would hopefully increase efficiency and maintain consistency in our antitrust policy.

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  HIDTA

  Funding dedicated to High Intensity Drug Trafficking Area (HIDTA) programs should be directed to DEA's budget. HIDTA duplicates the mission of DEA, an agency with a single mission. In addition to the duplicated mission, HIDTA also creates additional administrative cost and overhead expenses. Most HIDTAs have their executive staff (3-5 contactors who receive six figure salaries) and various IT and clerical position. ...more »

  Funding dedicated to High Intensity Drug Trafficking Area (HIDTA) programs should be directed to DEA's budget. HIDTA duplicates the mission of DEA, an agency with a single mission. In addition to the duplicated mission, HIDTA also creates additional administrative cost and overhead expenses. Most HIDTAs have their executive staff (3-5 contactors who receive six figure salaries) and various IT and clerical position. Even though HIDTAs share a mission with a government agency, they often rent seperate commercial office space, which require furniture, computers, telephones, etc. Keep in mind that there are currently 27 HIDTAs across the U.S.

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  Submitted by Community Member 2 years ago

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  Military Publications Ordering - Add Checks & Balances

  Currently, National Guard organizations have almost unlimited access to order (offical government) publications (Equipment Technical Manuals, Training Manuals, Etc) in any quantity and with any frequency desired. This enables waste through duplicate ordering, and ordering publications not relevant to the unit's mission/equipment. Inexperienced publication system users are able to easily create erroneous massive ...more »

  Currently, National Guard organizations have almost unlimited access to order (offical government) publications (Equipment Technical Manuals, Training Manuals, Etc) in any quantity and with any frequency desired.

  This enables waste through duplicate ordering, and ordering publications not relevant to the unit's mission/equipment. Inexperienced publication system users are able to easily create erroneous massive orders which result in boxes upon boxes of irrelevant publications arriving on their doorstep.

  Many of these publications contain restricted information, and proper disposal becomes an additional cost.

  I suggest that the ordering of publications be reviewed and include visibility of order cost, as well as cross-checking publications ordered against equipment records to validate need and quantity.

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  Submitted by Community Member 2 years ago

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  End Cargo Preference Regulations

  The Cargo Preference Act requires U.S. agencies to use U.S.-flagged carriers when transporting food for emergency and development purposes. However, this "buy American" provision is deceptive because foreign-owned businesses can easily flag their vessels as U.S. carriers and benefit themselves. In fact, an academic paper by Cornell's Chris Barrett looked at trends in 2005 and found that 68.6 percent of USAID food aid ...more »

  The Cargo Preference Act requires U.S. agencies to use U.S.-flagged carriers when transporting food for emergency and development purposes. However, this "buy American" provision is deceptive because foreign-owned businesses can easily flag their vessels as U.S. carriers and benefit themselves. In fact, an academic paper by Cornell's Chris Barrett looked at trends in 2005 and found that 68.6 percent of USAID food aid shipments were carried by just four lines, three of which were foreign-owned.

  This act was originally intended to support the U.S. merchant fleet, but the reality is that today the chief beneficiaries are foreign-owned businesses transporting food on ships that are too old to have any military use, and there is already a Maritime Security Program offering subsidies specifically for ships that do have military value. This act no longer does what it was intended to do, nor does it serve the beneficiaries it was intended to serve. What it does is erode the efficiency of government programs that save lives. Get the best bang for taxpayer dollars and eliminate cargo preference.

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  Submitted by Community Member 2 years ago

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  Paperless Arrivals / Departures

  At CBP all arriving and departing aircrafts must submit paper General Declarations and cargo documents to the Ships Office for processing. A CBP Officer must manually enter about 8 pieces of information onto a paper log and then enter that same information into a computer system called ACS. My idea is to create a system which would require airlines to enter the arrival or departure information into a CBP online system. ...more »

  At CBP all arriving and departing aircrafts must submit paper General Declarations and cargo documents to the Ships Office for processing. A CBP Officer must manually enter about 8 pieces of information onto a paper log and then enter that same information into a computer system called ACS. My idea is to create a system which would require airlines to enter the arrival or departure information into a CBP online system. A CBP officer would then have to verify the information online and authorize the arrival or departure. We currently use a system where Customs Brokers enter their commodities into a CBP system and when it enters the US a CBP Officer verifies it online or in ACS. This does a few things. First it eliminates a paper arrivals and departures log. Second it eliminates CBP Officers from spending countless hours entering information into a computer system because it would already be entered by the airline. Third it would reduce paper usage significantly, cutting costs and saving the environment.

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  Submitted by Community Member 2 years ago

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  IPACs - Obligating Document Number, PO Number

  Add fields on the IPAC form for Obligating Document number of the recipient and Purchase Order Number of the recipient. Perhaps we could all (government-wide) better streamline all of our financial systems if could put information relevant to both agencies (sender and recipient) on all IPACs. If those fields were required, perhaps we could automate a bill matching function better and save everyone in finance centers some ...more »

  Add fields on the IPAC form for Obligating Document number of the recipient and Purchase Order Number of the recipient. Perhaps we could all (government-wide) better streamline all of our financial systems if could put information relevant to both agencies (sender and recipient) on all IPACs. If those fields were required, perhaps we could automate a bill matching function better and save everyone in finance centers some time. Saving time saves money.

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  OCDETF

  Organized Crime Drug Enforcement Task Force (OCDETF) should be eliminated and the funding directed to DEA's budget. OCDETF has outlived it's designed purpose and exists as a source of administrative red-tape. Annuallly, DEA already applies for greater than 90 % of these funds which just allows the agency to continue the investigations that it was already doing. In regard to collaboration and coordination with counterparts, ...more »

  Organized Crime Drug Enforcement Task Force (OCDETF) should be eliminated and the funding directed to DEA's budget. OCDETF has outlived it's designed purpose and exists as a source of administrative red-tape. Annuallly, DEA already applies for greater than 90 % of these funds which just allows the agency to continue the investigations that it was already doing. In regard to collaboration and coordination with counterparts, DEA has been an innovator in this area. Modernization and increased intelligence sharing among agencies coupled with mergers of other agencies and the re-alignment of their mission's has made the OCDETF review and approval process a stodgy formality. Efficiency would be promoted by using these funds for DEA.

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  Submitted by Community Member 2 years ago

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  Redundancy at the FDIC for business registration

  The government has tried to create a single, authoritative registration system online for businesses and universities, who want to do business with us. And yet organizations like NIH and the FDIC are still paying money to host and maintain multiple, duplicative business registrations that they feel performs a unique function. The cost to operate these and the confusion to the businesses should make someone take notice. ...more »

  The government has tried to create a single, authoritative registration system online for businesses and universities, who want to do business with us. And yet organizations like NIH and the FDIC are still paying money to host and maintain multiple, duplicative business registrations that they feel performs a unique function. The cost to operate these and the confusion to the businesses should make someone take notice.

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  Submitted by Community Member 2 years ago

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  Eliminate redundance of NEPA and MSA

  The National Environmental Policy Act includes specific requirements for analyzing Federal actions. However, the Magnuson-Stevens Act (for fisheries) has redundant requirements with a different timeline. This is not only redundant, but results in two legally-mandated timelines that do not match up. Adding a provision to NEPA to exempt actions with analagous analysis requirments would streamline this.

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  Submitted by Community Member 2 years ago

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  Save National Weather Service COOP Program for Long-Term Savings

  The NWS should restock Off-The-Shelf, modern observation equipment for the coop observation program so that the coop program doesn't deteriorate beyond repair and adversely affect climate data. The NWS Coop program is probably the most efficient use of federal-civil cooperation to meet any ends. To let it deteriorate would mean more costs in the long term, that's for sure. It takes very expensive equipment to replace ...more »

  The NWS should restock Off-The-Shelf, modern observation equipment for the coop observation program so that the coop program doesn't deteriorate beyond repair and adversely affect climate data. The NWS Coop program is probably the most efficient use of federal-civil cooperation to meet any ends. To let it deteriorate would mean more costs in the long term, that's for sure. It takes very expensive equipment to replace the human eye.

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  Submitted by Community Member 2 years ago

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