Here’s something for federal employees to ponder in the age of the sequester.

The Friday deadline to submit ideas for the annual Securing Americans Value and Efficiency Award, is fast approaching.

The SAVE award is a contest created by President Barack Obama in 2009, seeking creative ideas from federal employees to help cut the budget, ensure tax payers dollars are spent wisely and improve the way government operates.

The judging criteria focuses on several key points:

• Improving the quality of output at lower costs; or
• Simplifying processes to reduce administrative burden; or
• Improving the speed of government operations to improve efficiency

Only federal employees can submit ideas, and those who plan to submit their ideas must use their federal email address to have a proposal considered. Those who don’t have an idea to submit can still participate — the website is set up like a forum, where you can vote on, agree with or comment on already posted ideas.

According to the White House website, ideas are sent to the relevant agencies to review for potential action, including inclusion in the budget. Over the past four years, more than 85,000 ideas have been submitted and so far approximately 80 have been included in the administration’s budget proposals.

Perhaps this is something for those folks who are taking a sequester-mandated furlough day to work on?