Upcoming Audit Work

The U.S. Postal Service’s mission is to provide the nation with trusted, safe, and secure mail services. As the Postal Service provides mail service to almost 153 million customers six days a week, mail theft is on the rise across the nation. Mail theft can occur through various methods: carrier robberies, using stolen or counterfeit universal keys—called arrow keys—to access collection boxes, and fishing or breaking into collection boxes with force. Our objective is to assess the Postal Service’s actions taken to mitigate and respond to mail theft in Queens, NY.

The Postal Service is working to leverage technology to provide world-class visibility and tracking of mail and packages in near real-time. Surface Visibility Web (SV) provides the Postal Service with real-time scan data and reporting on the movement of mail on the surface transportation network. Our objective is to evaluate surface visibility scanning compliance and oversight of dock operations. The scope of this project is a nationwide review of scanning scores for six scanning events from fiscal year (FY) 2021 through, FY 2023. The scanning events we will review include  Load, Unload, Trailer Arrive, Trailer Depart, Assign, and Close scans.

The U.S. Postal Service has specific policies and procedures on the proper acceptance, processing, delivery, and recording of Election and Political Mail. Election Mail is any mailpiece that an authorized election official creates for voters participating in the election process and includes ballots and voter registration materials. Political Mail is any mailpiece created by a registered political candidate, a campaign committee, or a committee of a political party for political campaign purposes. Our objective is to evaluate the U.S. Postal Service’s readiness for timely processing and delivery of Election and Political Mail for the 2024 general election.

The U.S. Postal Service uses Freight Auction automation for its transportation contract solicitation, bid, review, selection, and award of extra trips for Highway Contract Routes. 
Our objective is to assess the effectiveness of the Freight Auction for Highway Contract Routes. The scope of this project is a nationwide review of Freight Auction trips for fiscal years 2022 and 2023. Additionally, we plan to conduct site visits based on a judgmental sample selection.

Under Delivering for America, the Postal Service is targeting key markets where they can aggregate delivery units into fewer, larger, centrally located Sorting and Delivery Centers (S&DCs), to provide faster and more reliable mail and package delivery over a greater geographic area. The Postal Service plans to deploy over 400 new S&DCs in the next few years, with 21 conversions being implemented in February 2024. The objective of this audit is to evaluate service performance before and after implementation of the new Everett, WA S&DC – which will occur as part of the February 2024 conversions.