‘Best Idea for Government’ Nets Federal Worker $50,000

Wow, really? It must be nice to get awarded $50k for pushing an idea for something that already exists. It's called GSA Access: http://gsaxcess.gov/ What is really sad is that not only did the employee who got the award not know about it but apparently nobody else in the chain of events that led to the award being given did either.

The idea appears to recognize unused cars, office space such as conference rooms, etc. that could be used by another agency in a sharing arrangement, not as a property transfer which GSAXcess covers. GSAXcess.gov is the entry site for the Federal Excess Personal Property Utilization Program and the Federal Surplus Personal Property Donation Program operated by the General Services Administration. Your agency can report excess personal property for transfer by GSA to other Federal and State Agencies for Surplus Property (SASPs) as well as search for and obtain excess personal property.

This is an idea to "fix" government? Find out who's got the unused Pentium 90's? If that nets $50K I should be taking home my first $1 million bonus for this one: lets allocate funds and prioritize projects according to recognized principles of sound management, instead of catering to the political needs of elected officials. You don't like that? Okay, for $2 million they can have this one: make paper forms illegal, give eForm software only to people who have some training in developing rationally designed forms. Then save all basic demographic data to a central, encrypted database so that no employee or applicant ever has to enter it more than once. Where do I pick up my check(s)? Or do I have to fill out a form for direct deposit?

Really? Rewarding someone $50k for an idea without carrying it out? If the prize money were lower ($500) or the individual had to actually carry out their idea it would be more understandable. This is absolutely ridiculous.

That's amazing and just flat out sad.

You can please some of the people but never all of them. What are you ideas? Did you submmit them?

It's all a ruse to get employee morale up. The problem is, most employees don't hear about it. It's mostly managers and they pick out their friends to submit them. Try combining Meritalk with GovLoop with USDAishare blah blah blah. Imagine the savings. Only one idea port for the US government rather than taking employees away from their work like this comment page is doing. Try sending this government idea stuff out after work hours and don't allow people to even access it until then. Now there's some real savings. I actually DID submit my ideas and yes, some people here are simply jealous but really, don't you get tired of this?

Last year they gave the prize to someone that used an already-in-the works idea also.

It makes no sense to pay someone $50,000 for and idea that has not been tested or proven useful. Aren't we already paying employees to be productive and creative in the workplace. This is another example of how government waste money.

Yes, I like the fact that he suggested that General Services Administration (GSA) participate in the process. GSA already administers the Federal Excess Personal Property program and has since 1949. The winner is brilliant all right...a brilliant scam artist. He should be investigated and forced to give the money back.

Just like employee of the month, year, etc. It's usually somebody's kiss ass friend.

Any property that is no longer needed by a federal agency to carry out its mission is considered excess. By regulation, (41 CFR 102-36.35), agencies must report excess property to GSA "for possible transfer to eligible recipients, including Federal agencies for direct use or for use by their contractors, project grantees, or cooperative agreement recipients." This proposed "sharing arrangement" would not work because the owning federal agency would still be responsible for sharing costs incurred for maintenance, storage, etc., even though they are no longer using it. Why would any federal agency want to assume those costs for another agency? I'm not sure I understand the issue with unused conference rooms. Most conference rooms are shared spaces and any federal agency can get access to the space if scheduled ahead of time.

You should actually read what the poor devil proposed. It isn't the same as the GSA surplus program, though it does sound that way, and may overlap. And, sometimes people do have ideas that have been thought of or implemented before - but sometimes they are thought of in different ways and improve as a result. Unfortunately, people are reluctant to bring forward their ideas for fear of responses like these. Anyone can be critical, it takes zero effort, and is often the refuge of the uninspired. Instead of wasting your time demeaning others, how about applying your critical brilliance to solving problems with some good, or better ideas?

There are so many inefficiencies in process in government where real savings can be achieved. I think this is a ridiculous idea that will not achieve great savings in actual implementation. It will probably cost more to manage this program than it will achieve in savings.

Wow, this is some thread. Let's get a hold of ourselves here. To be clear, there was no Merit Award prize last year -- this is year one. If these other resources already exist -- why does nobody know about them? I've been working in and around government for 20 years -- did not know about GSA's program. What volumes move through this system? As for the points about how the winning ideas were selected, the submissions were judged by a panel of government and industry judges. That would make bringing an apple to school a difficult approach. Here's to those of you who commented on this story and pointed out the failings of some of these rants. Isn't it time that we took a swing at working together and coming forth with new ideas, rather than sniping at others creative solutions from the comfort of anonymity -- net net, this is a cowards approach. We are delighted that people are paying attention to the award. To change things you need to engage both the positive and the negative. If you're not happy with the winners -- and think that you can do better -- why not nominate your own idea next year? Meritocracy is about people rising based on the quality of their ideas. That means the good ideas rise above the others -- and that those that celebrate the status quo do what they can to disrupt progres. I would like to congratulate Aung Gye, and our other finalists for their creativity. Four out of five finalists were government employees -- who says government innovation is an oxymoron? Two final point, there was no government money in the funding for this award program. Lastly, my mother always told me that it's always better to check your facts before putting your size 11 in your cake hole. In cyber space, as in life, you can't go too far wrong by following the simple rules and manners learned in and around your family...

Typical government waste. And people wonder why our country is headed to bankruptcy. Give them more money and they will figure out a way to waste it.

I looked at GSA Access, and another commenter was correct: it appears that this site is not about sharing resources, it's about permanently donating them to another entity. So I think the award winner was right: a central clearing house of resources, shared among government agencies & nonprofits, could have enormous benefits. I'm thinking of resources like: meeting rooms a nonprofit can utilize, buses which might be used to take senior citizens to a senior center, a computer training center which could be used for job training etc.

Coming up with an idea is the easy part. Effective and efficient implementation is the tough part. Maybe a $100,000 bonus can be paid to the implementation person/team of the winning idea, if merited.