USPS Office of Inspector General

The U.S. Postal Service owns roughly 8,400 properties and leases more than 23,000 others with annual rents totaling more than $800 million. Yet, the Postal Service has “excess space” — property or space not used or needed.

The customer is king, or queen. It’s an age-old mantra that rings especially true in this age of the “empowered” customer.

The U.S. Postal Service has a lot of kings and queens. Last year, 857 million retail customers visited the more than 30,000 USPS-managed retail spaces, generating nearly $10 billion (14 percent) of the Postal Service’s $69.6 billion operating revenue.

In the last several months we’ve seen a lot of post offices suspend operations due to extreme weather. But natural disasters aren’t the only reason for emergency suspensions.

U.S. Postal Service district managers may also suspend the operations of any post office, station, or branch under its jurisdiction for: