105 votes
Too often agency officials regard year end funds as their personal slush funds, from which they can buy any goodies they would like. The OMB needs to track these much more closely, and when it finds abuse of these funds, not only claw back the misused funds, but reduce the next year's budget for that agency by double that amount.
8 votes
Eliminate fraud, waste and abuse in USAO's of false certification by both employees and supervisors/managers of time worked. Some support personnel as well as Attorneys arrive late (several hours) or leave early yet certify they worked a full 8 hours. In some instances employees will be out a full day (or longer) without charging leave.
9 votes
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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46 votes
Agency headquarters offices often assign home-to-work vehicles to non-operational personnel. As an example, our office is a support and coordination center. We have three vehicles assigned to our office as we are not co-located with our headquarters. Recently, the vehicles were assigned as home-to-work vehicles for the Director and Deputy Directors. Prior to this happening last summer, the two vehicles without police ...more »
Agency headquarters offices often assign home-to-work vehicles to non-operational personnel. As an example, our office is a support and coordination center. We have three vehicles assigned to our office as we are not co-located with our headquarters. Recently, the vehicles were assigned as home-to-work vehicles for the Director and Deputy Directors. Prior to this happening last summer, the two vehicles without police accoutrements were sent out to add sirens and police lights for these non-operational managers at a cost of nearly $5K. Toys for the boys. The public not only paid for the upgrades, but pay for their fuel, maintenance, repair and inspections. This is true government waste on a small scale that is happening all over and most likely in every agency with a law enforcement component. It also teeters on the edge of abuse of position and fraud in certifying that the upgrades to these vehicles was mission essential.
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23 votes
Too many times, the government would rather settle with a disgruntled employee instead of aggresively investigating the complaint. In some instances, employees are making complaints at each new office they go to. It's fraudulent but the government tends to settle to get rid of the complaint. I have heard rumors that some employees are getting away with hundreds of thousands of dollars only to go to a new office and ...more »
Too many times, the government would rather settle with a disgruntled employee instead of aggresively investigating the complaint. In some instances, employees are making complaints at each new office they go to. It's fraudulent but the government tends to settle to get rid of the complaint. I have heard rumors that some employees are getting away with hundreds of thousands of dollars only to go to a new office and then make a new claim.
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21 votes
Require that facilities use 10% of year end "waste" I mean "funds" be used to purchase solar or wind energy products for facilities. Soon government facilities will have no electric bill. This would save billions!!! Below are a few of my other ideas. Please feel free to vote or comment with your thoughts. I would love to get some constructive feedback. Thanks, Tony<>< http://governmentreform.ideascale.com/a/dtd/Huge-Fuel-Savings/117877-13060 ...more »
Require that facilities use 10% of year end "waste" I mean "funds" be used to purchase solar or wind energy products for facilities. Soon government facilities will have no electric bill. This would save billions!!!
Below are a few of my other ideas. Please feel free to vote or comment with your thoughts. I would love to get some constructive feedback.
Thanks,
Tony<><
http://governmentreform.ideascale.com/a/dtd/Huge-Fuel-Savings/117877-13060
http://governmentreform.ideascale.com/a/dtd/Paperless--electronic--Flight-Publications/120771-13060
http://governmentreform.ideascale.com/a/dtd/Computer-cloud-system--Billions-saved-/120807-13060
http://governmentreform.ideascale.com/a/dtd/No-more-fuel-dumping--Millions-saved-/120828-13060
http://governmentreform.ideascale.com/a/dtd/Fair-Tax--Save-Billions!-/120982-13060
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32 votes
The VA needs to create an investigate banch to investigate disability fraud. There are veterans out there who are getting disability checks for injuries and I know for a fact are not disabled. After getting out of the service their back suddenly healed and they were hauling rocks, digging up trees, mowing the law, playing basketball, running, and lifting weights. Lots of activity for someone with a hurt back and getting ...more »
The VA needs to create an investigate banch to investigate disability fraud. There are veterans out there who are getting disability checks for injuries and I know for a fact are not disabled. After getting out of the service their back suddenly healed and they were hauling rocks, digging up trees, mowing the law, playing basketball, running, and lifting weights. Lots of activity for someone with a hurt back and getting a disability check every month from the government and the tax payer. People who are receiving disability checks need to be surveiled, watched, recorded and reported if they are found to be liars. They should have to repay every single penny they were ever given and spend some time in jail and have to register. I'm sure this would save the government several million dollars each year.
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9 votes
Appears earnings enforements on people receiving disability payments hasnt worked in years. If enforement would pick up like on the records of retired people we could avoid thousands of dollars in overpayments. The computer system needs to be fixed to allow enforcements on each and every individual receiving any type of social security benefits. It appears it does for retirement but not for disability claimants.
71 votes
Mandate that the top 100 ideas at a minimum are forwarded to the involved agency executive for review and comment. There are an extensive amount of valuable ideas here that may not score number one. It would be tremendous waste of effort if those below number one were not reviewed for consideration. We all have an idea or two here, we all put effort into this, what a waste if the ideas were simply deleted. Mandate ...more »
Mandate that the top 100 ideas at a minimum are forwarded to the involved agency executive for review and comment.
There are an extensive amount of valuable ideas here that may not score number one. It would be tremendous waste of effort if those below number one were not reviewed for consideration. We all have an idea or two here, we all put effort into this, what a waste if the ideas were simply deleted.
Mandate that they are reviewed and not thrown out with the trash.
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35 votes
While these are programs serving a definite need, modifications should be considered. If someone receives either welfare or food stamps, are not disabled or retired, there should be a requirement for the participants to participate in a volunteer service community program and/or participate in an effective job skill training program to increase their employability and overall self-esteem by allowing the recipient to give ...more »
While these are programs serving a definite need, modifications should be considered. If someone receives either welfare or food stamps, are not disabled or retired, there should be a requirement for the participants to participate in a volunteer service community program and/or participate in an effective job skill training program to increase their employability and overall self-esteem by allowing the recipient to give something back to the community, increase their skills, and engage in networking opportunities to find job opportunities. These actions will see a significant reduction in cost for these programs.
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12 votes
Eliminate or minimize waste, fraud, and mismanagement within HUD by enforcement of the AFGE-HUD Agreement, the Merit System Principles, the laws against discrimination, and all other laws pertinent to HUD Management being held liable, accountable and responsible. HUD Management on the Field Office level have unbridled authority due to extreme lack of enforcement of the laws. Waste, fraud, and mismanagement are the norm ...more »
Eliminate or minimize waste, fraud, and mismanagement within HUD by enforcement of the AFGE-HUD Agreement, the Merit System Principles, the laws against discrimination, and all other laws pertinent to HUD Management being held liable, accountable and responsible. HUD Management on the Field Office level have unbridled authority due to extreme lack of enforcement of the laws. Waste, fraud, and mismanagement are the norm for the Cleveland Field Office of HUD because of members of management who lack integrity and respect for honesty, daily violate the Merit System Principles, and the AFGE-HUD Agreement, and laws against discrimination and other laws. Non-management staff, taxpayers, and HUD customers suffer because of the above-the-law members of HUD Management. HUD Management outside of the Field Office tend to support Field Office Management without an appropriate discernment of the facts, nor proper investigation when that is warranted. Some staff members receive overtime pay because they have work that remains to be completed beyond the 8 hour workday, although they do not work their complete 8 hour workday because they shop, eat breakfast or brunch, or just escape from the Office while they are on the clock. HUD Management is guilty of arbitrary, caprcious and subjective decisionmaking. They play favorites. No matter how good an employee's work ethic and performance is, HUD Management rewards those they like and punish those they dislike. Frequently alleged talent from the outside is hired over experienced HUD veterans due to HUD Management's subjective negative feelings for certain staff members they personally do not like. HUD Management regularly disrespect the truth by attacking certain staff with false allegations regarding performance and/or behavior. Members of HUD Management are not serving on a term basis, thus they can be in their Management positions forever. The AFGE Union is also fraught with favoritism and abuse.
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53 votes
Review Disability benefits to eliminate fraud. Those who have never paid into the program should not receive benefits. Eliminate those illegally in the country from benefits.
45 votes
Political campaigns should be taxed just as any business is taxed. These campaigns raise millions of dollars that are non taxable expense accounts for the politicians. At a 20-28% tax rate that would greatly help the economy
18 votes
How much of our tax payer money is wasted on fraud? Billions of our hard earned dollars go out to people defrauding Social Security and Medicare as an example. Create new systems to identify fraud, move analysts to work in identifying and stopping fradulent payments. The work of these individuals would pay for itself!
22 votes
Too many have cell phones. Cell phones should be limited to Emergency Essencial personnel.
13 votes
In the Washington, DC metro area, federal employees are provided a transit subsidy of up to $120 a month (it was $240 for a short time) for public transportation, e.g. buses, rail, ride share. Whether you think the government should be paying for employees' transportation or not is a different topic. I would like to focus on the current abuse of the sytem. I don't know how widespread the abuse is but I do know that some ...more »
In the Washington, DC metro area, federal employees are provided a transit subsidy of up to $120 a month (it was $240 for a short time) for public transportation, e.g. buses, rail, ride share. Whether you think the government should be paying for employees' transportation or not is a different topic. I would like to focus on the current abuse of the sytem. I don't know how widespread the abuse is but I do know that some employees apply for the maximum subsidy regardless of how much their trip actually costs. After a couple of months someone could easily have a couple hundred dollars in metro fare that can be given to friends/family or sold at discounted rates. DC's Metro is already plagued with budget issues and this excess "free money" makes it that much worse.
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9 votes
Restructure the Earned Income Credit laws so it is only available to parents and legal guardians. It should not be treated as an income source for extended family members or friends that don’t even know the child’s birthday but claim they support the child. Also the Earned Income Credit should not be retroactive for three years to anyone who did not have a valid Social Security Number, especially if the taxpayer has not ...more »
Restructure the Earned Income Credit laws so it is only available to parents and legal guardians. It should not be treated as an income source for extended family members or friends that don’t even know the child’s birthday but claim they support the child. Also the Earned Income Credit should not be retroactive for three years to anyone who did not have a valid Social Security Number, especially if the taxpayer has not previously filed taxes. The credit should be restricted to the year the Social Security Number is received.
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31 votes
Start imposing a fine on overstays and out of status F1 students. Once they marry a US citizen or a family member becomes a US citizen and petitions for them, they are eligible for permanent residency (a green card). If any other person enters the U.S. illegally they cannot adjust status unless there is an amnesty or special rule, but; they do get fined. Should they enter the U.S. on a B2 visitor visa and then file ...more »
Start imposing a fine on overstays and out of status F1 students. Once they marry a US citizen or a family member becomes a US citizen and petitions for them, they are eligible for permanent residency (a green card). If any other person enters the U.S. illegally they cannot adjust status unless there is an amnesty or special rule, but; they do get fined. Should they enter the U.S. on a B2 visitor visa and then file for permanent residency they should also fall into this category as obviously the intent was not to travel but, stay. We do have a few loop holes in the laws that do need to be tightened up in order to ensure that all get treated equally. If you are out of status or an overstay you are here in an illegal capacity. If you work without proper authorization you are a violator of U.S. laws. Most applicants have been working for years illegally as well, but; the I-601 (Application for Waiver of Grounds of Inadmissibility) doesn’t get implemented by policy guidelines unless you can assure you will deny their immigration benefit. The applicant walks away scot free having committed several offenses with no repercussions. The United States needs to start implementing some kind of a penalty for this repeated offense! This practice is widespread and unacceptable as it makes a mockery of our laws and regulations. Why not list them along with the list of applicants eligible for Supplement A on the I-485 at least that might curb some of the infractions. If nothing else, justice gets spread a little more evenly amongst the immigrant population.
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11 votes
Employees at various government agencies identify indivduals abusing the system, but have no way to flag them for scrutiny of other agencies. A shared inter-agency database should be established that would include the identity of these individuals. Often the same people scam multiple govenment programs, or maybe just another program managed by a different agency. For example, an IRS employee may see potential SSA program ...more »
Employees at various government agencies identify indivduals abusing the system, but have no way to flag them for scrutiny of other agencies. A shared inter-agency database should be established that would include the identity of these individuals. Often the same people scam multiple govenment programs, or maybe just another program managed by a different agency. For example, an IRS employee may see potential SSA program abuse and/or welfare program abuse, but cannot refer them anywhere.
Each agency should have a group to review the identified individuals listed in the database for activities to investigate.
If no agency confirms a problem with the individual within two years, the name should be removed from the database.
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210 votes
There are several employees who are working for the VA who are also receiving a disablity check from the VA every month. Why should an employee who can work a full time job at a GS11 or GS12 received a disability payment from the VA? These employees are not disabled and shouldn't be recieving a government welfare check every month for being able to work a full time job. This is a huge amount of money being wasted. ...more »
There are several employees who are working for the VA who are also receiving a disablity check from the VA every month. Why should an employee who can work a full time job at a GS11 or GS12 received a disability payment from the VA? These employees are not disabled and shouldn't be recieving a government welfare check every month for being able to work a full time job. This is a huge amount of money being wasted. I think the Congress needs to fix this loophole in the law and correct this. Certainly this could save several millions of dollars a year
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8 votes
We have got to stop the ease at which people are utilizing the identity of others to obtain large, false, tax refunds. IRS needs to verify the identity of an individual receiving a refund. The majority of refunds should only go to bank accounts with matching name controls. ID should be required for the issuing of any hard copy checks. We've got to stop paying these refunds. The situation is out of control.
35 votes
In order to promote fairness and improve efficiency, bonuses and raises should be given publicly with reasons to back them up. Few people would complain about rewarding those who deserve it. When everything is kept secret, like it is now, managers are free to show favoritism. That rewards people who haven't earned it and discourages those who try to earn such rewards but do not get them.
12 votes
In offices where the work performance cannot be measured, the work overtime ought to be eliminated. Unfortunately I see this being abused often. It is bad enough that in operational offices that provide for overtime, employees work to ensure that they work as many hours of overtime as possible. Because the work can be measured in operations, it is much easier to justify the extra hours put in (more processed cases). In ...more »
In offices where the work performance cannot be measured, the work overtime ought to be eliminated. Unfortunately I see this being abused often. It is bad enough that in operational offices that provide for overtime, employees work to ensure that they work as many hours of overtime as possible. Because the work can be measured in operations, it is much easier to justify the extra hours put in (more processed cases). In a policy component or in a training facility, that is not the case. There is no reason GS-13 and GS-14 employees should be allowed to work overtime, especially when the work cannot be measured and the employee is more than adequately compensated for the work being performed.
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12 votes
Re: Social Security Administration SSI Program Residency Violations According to a 2003 GAO report (GAO-03-724), "overpayments resulting from residency violations totaled about $118 million between 1997 and 2001. However, this figure, which represents only violations detected by SSA, likely understates the true level of the problem." In an April 2008 Audit Report (A-01-07-17036) the SSA OIG Audit Division estimated ...more »
Re: Social Security Administration SSI Program Residency Violations
According to a 2003 GAO report (GAO-03-724), "overpayments resulting from residency violations totaled about $118 million between 1997 and 2001. However, this figure, which represents only violations detected by SSA, likely understates the true level of the problem."
In an April 2008 Audit Report (A-01-07-17036) the SSA OIG Audit Division estimated that "SSA will continue to not detect approximately $100.5 million each year to recipients who are absent from the United States if action is not taken by the Agency".
In order to significantly reduce this type of fraud, the SSA Region IX Regional Anti-Fraud Committee has been trying to obtain border crossing data from DHS/Customs and Border Protection since 2004. To date, these efforts have been unsuccessful. The reluctance of government agencies to engage in cooperative efforts to combat fraud, waste and abuse is inexcusable.
Remedy: DHS/CBP provides SSA access to border crossing data to enable SSA to detect residency violations.
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27 votes
Why are members of the military (I am one of them) issued small items such as Oakley sunglasses, leatherman and Gerber pocket knives and multi-tools, neoprene gloves, polartec fleece items (a never ending list to follow,) and they are rarely required to be returned! I've been to units where new and replacement multi-tools or Gerber folding knives were GIVEN AWAY to the people that "needed" them. It's one thing to need ...more »
Why are members of the military (I am one of them) issued small items such as Oakley sunglasses, leatherman and Gerber pocket knives and multi-tools, neoprene gloves, polartec fleece items (a never ending list to follow,) and they are rarely required to be returned! I've been to units where new and replacement multi-tools or Gerber folding knives were GIVEN AWAY to the people that "needed" them. It's one thing to need it for your job, but when your job is to cut something, use one of the knives that are government property rather than use peoples tax dollars to purchaser these "nice-to-have's) A look into just how often this happens by a higher authority will reveal some unpleasant findings. More stringent policies should be made and monitored but; nevertheless, somethign this small will continue to fly under the radar because it's not a big enough contributing factor. The "big picture" is comprised of hundreds, if not thousands of these smaller pictures...
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