U.S. Postal Service officials operate more than 32,000 facilities across the country, so it’s not unexpected that they also spend a lot of money on repairs and maintenance.
But there is no documentation for more than $22 million worth of repairs that postmasters and other postal officials paid for last year with credit cards, according to USPS inspector general.
Postal officials have a national contractor who takes care of repair and maintenance jobs that cost less than $25,000. They can use a credit card to pay jobs costing less than $10,000.
The total cost of all repairs and maintenance jobs was $86 million. Officials must submit documentation for the big jobs, but not for the smaller jobs under current postal regulations.
“We estimated the Postal Service paid for 26,706 of the 49,980 repairs and alterations (53.4 percent), totaling $52.9 million, by credit card,” the IG said.
The $22 million figure was the IG’s estimate of how many of the credit card jobs were paid for without written documentation.
The IG cited as an example a postmaster who “incurred credit card charges totaling $278,785 in one month. Fifty-eight percent of the charges ($160,955) were paid to one contractor for 43 repairs and alterations,” the IG said.
The problem is, according to the IG, “there were no internal controls in place that required an additional review of this contractor’s repair activity for this credit card statement period.”
As a result, the quality of the work or even if it was completed could not be verified, the IG said.
“In addition, the Postal Service may not be able to successfully defend itself from potential disputes with vendors about repairs and alterations because it does not document work completion,” the IG said.
The IG recommended that postal officials upgrade their tracking system to account for all repairs and maintenance.
Postal officials disagreed with the IG’s recommendation, saying they are planning upgrades to their tracking system for repairs and maintenance, but those upgrades won’t include the jobs paid for with credit cards.
Postal managers also told the IG that officials using credit cards are required to have verbal confirmation that work is completed as required.
“Management further stated that the OIG did not find any harm to the Postal Service from the present practice,” the IG said.
Go here to read the full USPS IG report.
Mark Tapscott is executive editor of the Washington Examiner.
