Background

The Postal Regulatory Commission (PRC) is an independent establishment of the executive branch that exercises regulatory oversight of the U.S. Postal Service. The PRC offers a range of benefits to its employees including, but not limited to, transit benefits, bonuses, time-off-awards, telework, remote work, flexible work schedules, recruitment and retention incentives, and paid leave. By providing these options, the PRC seeks to attract and retain a high-performing, varied workforce with workplace flexibility.

What We Did

The objective of our audit was to determine whether the PRC followed all applicable laws, regulations, and policies around employee compensation and benefits. We reviewed compensation and benefit policies, procedures, and internal controls over these programs during the period January 2022 through December 2024.

What We Found

While the PRC adhered to applicable laws and regulations, we identified areas where the PRC did not adhere to its own policy, as well as opportunities to improve internal controls. Specifically, the PRC could better adhere to its remote work policy; improve its application of locality pay; improve its hiring incentives process; and establish more internal controls over employee leave requests. While not every benefit audited had issues with implementation, those that did stemmed from the PRC either not applying policy consistently or not referring to policy when creating supporting templates. In addition, internal controls can help verify administrative processes are working effectively.

Recommendations and Management’s Comments

We made four recommendations to address the issues identified in the report. PRC management agreed with two recommendations, partially agreed with one, and disagreed with one. Management’s comments and our evaluation are at the end of each finding and recommendation. We consider management’s comments responsive to recommendations 2, 3, and 4, as corrective actions should resolve the issues identified. We will pursue management’s disagreement with recommendation 1 through the formal audit resolution process.