States Saves Millions With Employee Tips

Bonnie Gasperini is proof that bosses really do empty those employee suggestion boxes and read the scribbled ideas stuffed inside.

The librarian from the state Department of Mental Health received $450 for her idea to let psychiatric clinics show feature-length films to patients without the usual permit.

Since 1978, state officials have saved more than $48 million by putting to work ideas such as Gasperini’s and those of 1,700 other employees.

“People in the best position to make a difference in a large bureaucracy are the people who work in those areas every day. They can make minor adjustments in the way things are done and improve how things run overall,” said Dale Johnston, chief of the Civil Service Department’s Employee Suggestion Award Program.

Michigan saved $88,326 in the last two months by putting into practice its most recent batch of employee suggestions, Johnston said.

Workers get 10% of whatever the state saved through their tips a year, up to a maximum of $5,000. There’s one catch: Employees must give up any copyrights or patents for their ideas.

State treasury worker Judy Morse recently got $875 for persuading her agency to quit mailing an obscure form to tax preparers. So far, her suggestion has saved the state $8,743.

“It’s exciting. It encourages you to be thinking all the time of ways to improve things,” Morse said.

Eastman Kodak Co. is credited with installing the nation’s first employee suggestion boxes in 1898. The trend has caught on: Last year, worker tips helped 1,000 U.S. businesses save an estimated $2.3 billion, according to the Chicago-based National Assn. of Suggestion Systems.

State governments got into the game later. But they’ve since found that enterprising employees can save taxpayers a bundle.

Last summer, an eagle-eyed Massachusetts welfare worker got a $10,000 bonus for finding $489 million in uncollected federal Medicaid money for that financially troubled state.

In the 14 years since Michigan’s program was made permanent, state workers submitted 18,771 suggestions and shared $581,820 in awards. For every dollar an employee is paid as a bonus, the state saves $83, Johnston said.

“We’ve found that each idea has the potential to save the state $28,000 in the first year alone,” he said. “It does add up.”