USPS Office of Inspector General

It’s that time of year again. Our annual list of the top 10 stories from the postal and logistics world. And who doesn’t love a list?

As always, we had no shortage of stories. In fact, the hardest part every year is narrowing the list down to 10. (Now we appreciate how difficult it is for the Football Bowl Series to rank college football programs for the annual four-team playoff!)

The OIG staff sifted through the postal-related news of 2017 and put together a top 10 list of stories. In reverse order of importance, here they are:

Pushing the Envelope wishes our readers a joyful holiday season and a prosperous New Year. We will take a break this week, but we encourage you to read over the past year’s blogs and let us know what you think about any of the wide range of topics we blogged on in 2017.

On January 1, we will post our annual list of the Top 10 Postal Stories of the Year – one of our most popular blogs of the year.

As package volumes climb, so too has the U.S. Postal Service’s investments in sorting systems. Since 2015, it has deployed 33 Small Package Sorting System (SPSS) machines costing over $141 million. It intended to invest another $23 million to have seven more SPSS machines operational during the current holiday season.

Small purchases can add up. That’s certainly the case with the government’s purchase card program, which provides charge cards to more than 350 federal agencies, organizations, and Native American tribal governments.

Two times a year, we publish a report of our work and activities for a just-ended six-month period. This Semiannual Report to Congress (or SARC, as we affectionately call it) is required by law, but it’s also a chance for us to share our record of work with our many stakeholders.

The work reflects our mission of ensuring efficiency, accountability, and integrity in the U.S. Postal Service. We also help maintain confidence in the postal system and improve the Postal Service’s bottom line through independent audits, investigations, data analytics and research.