USPS OIG: Semiannual Report to Congress

October 1, 2013 – March 31, 2014 The Office of Inspector General is tasked with ensuring efficiency, accountability, and integrity in the U.S. Postal Service. We also have the distinct mission of helping to maintain confidence in the mail and postal system, as well as to improve the Postal Service’s bottom line. We use audits…

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Village Post Offices — are they worth it for the USPS?

The United States Postal Service introduced yet another program in July 2011 to sell stamps somewhere other than a normal post office. Located primarily in small towns, Village Post Offices have only two missions: to sell booklets of stamps and to have Priority Mail flat-rate boxes available to take. The VPO has no scales to…

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Postal CSI: Preventing crime by mail

WASHINGTON (WUSA9)– Any time the United States mail is used to commit a crime, you can bet the investigators at the National Forensic Lab of the US Postal Inspection Service are analyzing critical evidence. Latent Print Analyst Stephanie Toth offered a demonstration. “This is an Ab Roller box that we got in. They foamed the…

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Government Pays the Price for Making Fed Employees Depressed

When  employees are not happy, employers – often unwittingly – pay the price. Federal agency managers must not lose sight of this causality as they strive to operate with smaller and smaller budgets. For instance, unhappy employees – especially those who are “extremely negative” and “actively disengaged” – can severely impair productivity. In fact, the…

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APWU 2014 Convention Key Registration Deadlines

Monday, June 2 – Convention Resolutions Deadline Tuesday, June 17 – Hotel Reservation Deadline for Hyatt Regency Chicago and Hyatt Regency McCormick Place. *Please make your room reservations for these two hotels by June 17. After that date, rooms and rates will be based on availability. You must use a credit card when booking online….

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GCA Statement On Rumored “Pay-For” Postal Scheme

Washington, D.C., May 29, 2014 – The Greeting Card Association (GCA) issued the following statement in response to rumored efforts by House Republicans aimed at using the elimination of Saturday mail delivery as a “pay-for” to offset a bailout of the Highway Trust Fund: “Eliminating essential services like Saturday delivery in order to bail out…

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Google Building Post Office Going Nowhere, for Now

The post office on the ground floor of Chelsea’s Google building is apparently safe from the tech giant’s forthcoming construction plans — for now. But spokespeople for the United States Postal Service (USPS) and the building’s management can’t seem to entirely agree on the information they’re releasing about the future of the post office. Some…

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House Bill: Cutting Back Mail Delivery

H.R. 4670 Secure Delivery for America Act of 2014 The Essentials 1. For three years, Representative Darrell Issa (R-Calif.) has tried to sell his colleagues on a comprehensive postal reform bill. His rescue plan for the money-losing U.S. Postal Service includes ending Saturday letter delivery, closing some post offices, and consolidating the agency’s sprawling distribution…

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