Passport Revenue and Fees - Stockdale Station, Bakersfield, CA
Background
This report presents the results of our self-initiated audit of Passport Revenue and Fees – Stockdale Station, Bakersfield, CA (Project Number 18BFM025FCS000). The Stockdale Station is in the Sierra Coastal District of the Pacific Area. This audit was designed to provide the U.S. Postal Service management with timely information on potential financial control risks at Postal Service locations.
Postal Service began accepting passport applications on the State Department’s behalf in 1975. With more than 5,000 locations, the Postal Service processes millions of passport applications each year through both walk-ins and appointments. For fiscal years (FY) 2016 and 2017, the Postal Service revenue for passport acceptance fees was $150 million and $165 million, respectively, and, for passport photo services, was $48 million and $60 million, respectively.
Passport acceptance fee revenue was $148 million, and passport photo services revenue was $50 million, or 34 percent of the passport acceptance fee revenue, for the period of October 1, 2017 through June 30, 2018. The U.S. Postal Service Office of Inspector General’s (OIG) data analytics identified Postal Service retail units with low amounts of revenue recorded to account identifier code (AIC)1 241, Passport Photo Services, compared to AIC 264, USPS Passport Acceptance Fee, for the same period.
For Stockdale Station, passport photo services revenue for October 1, 2017, to June 30, 2018 was $57,405 compared to $91,335 for October 1, 2016, to June 30, 2017, a 37 percent drop in revenue. For April through June 2018, the total revenue was $17,880 compared to $32,655 for the same period in 2017, a 45 percent drop in revenue. It is unusual for one office to have such a high decrease in photo services revenue.
Our objective was to determine whether passport photo revenue and fees were appropriately reported and whether opportunities for increasing photo services revenue were optimized at the Stockdale Station.