No Shortage of Cost-Cutting Ideas

As of Friday morning, the Obama administration had received 15,000 unique ideas for how to make government more efficient from about 19,000 federal employees who had either posted a proposal or voted on the idea they liked best.

The ideas -- due by the end of the day Friday -- were submitted as part of the Securing Americans Value and Efficiency (SAVE) awards, instituted in 2009 to cull cost-saving strategies from front-line workers.

2010's winner was Trudy Givens, a Bureau of Prisons employee who suggested ending automatic delivery of hard copies of the Federal Register.

Obama made a reference to that idea in announcing his Campaign to Cut Waste, launched in June.

The Save Award, though three years old, is now being touted as part of the anti-waste campaign in White House emails.

Administration officials will select four finalists among the thousands of cost-cutting ideas and then the general public will pick the winning proposal.