BACKGROUND:

The U.S. Postal Service Office of Inspector General (OIG) developed a series of interrelated city delivery efficiency indicators to rank the relative risk of the 67 Postal Service districts for operational and service issues. The South Florida District was ranked as the second most “at-risk” district, as of fiscal year (FY) 2013, Quarter 3.

In FY 2013, South Florida District city letter carriers delivered almost 2.8 billion mailpieces on 4,096 routes to over 2.5 million delivery points. City delivery office and street operational workhours totaled 9,844,953. Our objective was to assess the efficiency of city delivery operations in the South Florida District.

WHAT THE OIG FOUND:

The South Florida District has opportunities to enhance efficiency in city delivery operations. We found that 83 of 112 delivery units (74 percent) used 374,982 more workhours than projected. This occurred because management did not always enforce policies and procedures for supervising city delivery operations. Also, office and street supervision was inconsistent at the delivery units, allowing for some inefficiency in operations. Officials indicated their office workload priorities limited their ability to monitor carriers delivering mail. We identified the potential to eliminate 374,982 workhours through improved supervision and other efforts. This would increase overall efficiency at these delivery units and allow the Postal Service to avoid about $15 million in costs annually.

We also identified assets at risk totaling $165,508 at four delivery units due to inadequate safeguards. Management immediately initiated corrective action on these security matters.

WHAT THE OIG RECOMMENDED:

We recommended the manager, South Florida District, instruct unit supervisors at the 83 delivery units to eliminate 374,982 workhours. We also recommended the manager reinforce policies and procedures for supervising city delivery office and street operations at these delivery units and eliminate inefficient practices. Further, we recommended the manager require delivery supervisors to establish, review, and update integrated operating plans to ensure mail arrives timely and in route order for easy retrieval by letter carriers.