Background

U.S. Senator Josh Hawley (R-Missouri) requested an audit of postal stations in the Kansas City area. Residents in the service area were experiencing significant delays and routinely waiting more than five days to receive mail. We reviewed ten postal stations and the Kansas City, Missouri, Processing and Distribution Center to determine issues impacting the reported delayed mail volume in the Kansas City area.

What We Did

Our objective was to evaluate mail delivery operations at selected locations in the Kansas-Missouri District. We reviewed reported delayed mail and interviewed local management and employees. We conducted site observations at 10 postal stations and one mail processing facility.

What We Found

We found instances of delayed mail at selected sites throughout the Kansas-Missouri District and identified inaccurate reporting of mail conditions at seven of the 10 selected postal stations and the processing and distribution center. Further, we found carriers improperly scanned packages as delivered, packages that we sampled had missing or inaccurate package scans, and packages in the “Notice Left” area were not returned to the sender, as required. Additionally, we found management did not properly manage arrow keys or maintain arrow key inventory lists, as required.

Recommendations

We recommended management re-evaluate staffing levels and implement a plan to hire and retain employees; assess employee absenteeism for common trends and develop a process to reduce truancy; develop and implement a plan to ensure delayed mail is reported daily in the proper systems and monitor the systems for completion; review package scanning performance daily and enforce compliance; and develop and implement a plan to verify arrow key inventories are conducted and arrow keys are secured in accordance with policy.

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Source: USPS OIG