USPS Office of Inspector General

You may not have heard the term advance electronic data (AED), but that’s likely to change with the Synthetics Trafficking and Overdose Prevention (STOP) Act in place. AED, which includes information about a package’s content, is an important component in ensuring the security of packages coming into the United States through the international mail system.

U.S. Postal Service delivery points are increasing each year. Package volumes are rising steadily as well. And so are customer expectations. This paradigm tends to lead to an increase in customer complaints, especially when delivery performance doesn’t meet expectations.

Most people know the start to the TV show Law & Order: In the criminal justice system, the people are represented by two separate yet equally important groups… If we were teeing up the OIG for an introduction in that vein, it might go like this: The OIG mission is to ensure efficiency, accountability, and integrity in the U.S. Postal Service. We do that through independent audits and investigations.

This sounds like a math problem on a standardized test: If the amount of mail processed in fiscal year (FY) 2018 declined by 5 billion pieces and total number of workers used to process mail declined by 5,000 career employees (with workhours also dropping by 4.3 million), how much did overtime costs decrease?

Answer: They didn’t. Overtime costs to process mail increased by $257 million (31 percent) in FY2018 from the previous year. What happened?

The opioids epidemic, which President Trump declared a public health emergency in October 2017, has had a national impact on many people, businesses, and organizations, including the U.S. Postal Service.