The United States Postal Service will get some bad but unsurprising news today. The Government Accountability Office is expected to add it to its list of “high risk” government operations.
The GAO publishes a biennial list of high risk agencies, which they define as having “significant management challenges.” It put out a list in January but is apparently updating it with the addition of the USPS in an effort to spur Congress to do something substantial to help keep it solvent.
The GAO currently has a list of 30 high risk federal programs, policies and operations it says are “vulnerable to waste, fraud, abuse and mismanagement or in need of sweeping transformation.”
USPS has been suffering financially for a while now, losing $2.8 billion in 2008 thanks to competition from FedEx and UPS and the fact that fewer people are sending mail.
The move by GAO comes as the USPS struggles to come up with billions of dollars it is required to put into its retiree health care fund and it could default when payment is due on Sept. 30.
Postmaster General John Potter warned Congress in March that the postal service could run out of funds completely this year and asked to cut back mail delivery to five days per week as a cost saving measure.
The Postal Service has come on and off this list before, with the GAO removing it most recently in 2007.
The high risk list currently includes the nation’s financial regulatory system, the Food and Drug Administration oversight of medical products and the Environmental Protection Agency’s management of toxic chemicals.
