Postal Service's Employee Vetting Process
Background
The U.S. Postal Service must screen and evaluate prospective employees to ensure they are suitable for the position and will maintain the required integrity. The U.S. Postal Inspection Service is responsible for conducting background investigations, ensuring all potential employees are properly vetted before joining the workforce. Most positions are considered low risk and require a background investigation called a National Agency Check with Inquiries (NACI). The Postal Service’s Human Resources team is responsible for verifying that the background investigation is completed prior to beginning the onboarding process.
What We Did
Our objective was to assess the Postal Service’s employee background screening process to determine whether the Postal Service properly granted clearances to employees. We reviewed clearances for recently hired employees and employees who were investigated by the U.S. Postal Service Office of Inspector General (OIG) — which has jurisdiction to investigate postal employees — and the Postal Inspection Service — which investigates employee workplace violence.
What We Found
The Postal Service generally adhered to background screening requirements after process improvements were implemented in 2023. As part of this audit, we sampled people hired from 2023 through 2025 to verify whether screenings occurred and found that 96 percent of employees had completed background checks on file. However, the Postal Service is still facing risks due to previous and ongoing gaps in the NACI process. The Postal Service’s process improvements to its background check process were not retroactive, and among the investigated employees sampled, there were individuals without a recorded NACI who still worked at the Postal Service. There was also an employee who was rehired despite being the subject of an ongoing investigation, and employees who were rehired after committing a crime. In addition, opportunities exist to strengthen documentation and process controls.
Recommendations and Management’s Comments
We made four recommendations to address Postal Service’s vetting process deficiencies. Postal Service management agreed with three of our recommendations and disagreed with one. Management’s comments and our evaluation are at the end of each finding and recommendation. The OIG considers management’s comments responsive to recommendations 2, 3, and 4, as corrective actions should resolve the issues identified in the report. We will work with management