USPS OIG: Management Alert – Missing Leased Trailers in the Northeast Area

leased_trailers_OIGAudit Report – NO-MA-14-004 – 08/25/2014

Conclusion:
We confirmed that Postal Service officials in the Northeast Area were unable to account for 35 trailers and could not provide documentation of ever receiving the trailers from the leasing company. The Postal Service continued paying lease costs of $249,454 for the trailers for 2 years (October 1, 2011 to September 30, 2013), even though it could not validate their location or use during that period. We confirmed that New Jersey NDC and Northeast Area officials searched for the missing trailers, and the search did not reveal any records of trailer movements. As a result, the Postal Service stopped the monthly lease payments in October 2013 and paid the trailer supplier $37,920 for the residual value of the 35 trailers. They received the titles in April 2014 for the lost trailers.

We performed our own analysis of the data for the 35 missing trailers in the Transportation Information Management Evaluation System (TIMES) and Surface Visibility (SV) systems, and confirmed no record of trailer movements or use in Postal Service operations.

Officials were unable to account for these trailers because:

  • The Postal Service does not have an adequate process to document that leased trailers have been delivered and accepted;
  • The Postal Service does not have an inventory system for leased trailers or a process to periodically validate the number of leased trailers on hand;
  • The Postal Service is sometimes inconsistently labeling trailers and incorrectly entering trailer identification numbers or temporary identification numbers into SV and TIMES, resulting in incomplete and inconsistent data needed for tracking; and
  • The missing trailers did not have satellite-tracking devices so that area and plant managers could track them.

Read more:  Office of Inspector General | United States Postal Service.

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