Congrats to the SAVE Award winner

OMB today announced the winner of the first ever Securing Americans Value and Efficiency (SAVE) Awards. Nancy Fichtner, a fiscal program support clerk at the Veterans Affairs Department nabbed the honor. She will meet with Pres. Obama at the White House on Dec. 21 to discuss her idea, which will be included in the fiscal 2011 budget.

Fichtner's idea is for veterans leaving VA hospitals to be able to take the medication they have been using home with them, rather than have it be thrown away upon their discharge.

"The SAVE Award is about allowing federal employees on the frontlines to contribute their ideas on how we can make government more efficient and more effective," OMB Director Peter Orszag said. "I want to commend the three runners-up for their efforts and for their inspiring dedication to public service."

More than 38,000 federal employees submitted ideas for making the government more efficient and effective and OMB officials say hundreds of the "most promising" ideas were passed back to agencies to be included in the next budget. The general public picked a winner among a designated "final four."