Mr. Chairman and Members of the Subcommittee: We are pleased to be here today to participate in the Subcommittee’s oversight hearing on the U.S. Postal Service. My testimony will (1) focus on the performance of the Postal Service and the need for improving internal controls and protecting revenue in an organization that takes in and spends billions of dollars each year and (2) highlight some of the key reform and oversight issues that continue to challenge the Postal Service and Congress as they consider how U.S. mail service will be provided in the future. I will also provide some observations from our ongoing work relating to labor-management relations at the Postal Service and other areas. My testimony is based on our ongoing work and work that we completed over the past year. First, I would like to discuss both the reported successes and some of the remaining areas of concern related to the Postal Service’s performance. Last year, the Postal Service reported that it had achieved outstanding financial and operational performance. Financially, the Postal Service had the second most profitable year in its history. According to the Postal Service’s 1996 annual report, its fiscal year 1996 net income was $1.6 billion. Similarly, with regard to mail delivery service, the Postal Service continued to meet or exceed its goals for on-time delivery of overnight mail. Most recently, the Postmaster General announced that, during 1996, the Postal Service delivered 91 percent of overnight local residential mail on time or better. Additionally, during fiscal year 1996, the Postal Service’s volume exceeded 182 billion pieces of mail and generated more than $56 billion in revenue. While these results are encouraging, other performance data suggest that some areas of concern warrant closer scrutiny. For example, last year’s delivery of 2-day and 3-day mail—at 80 and 83 percent respectively—did not score as high as overnight delivery. Such performance has raised a concern among some customers that the Postal Service’s emphasis on overnight delivery is at the expense of 2-day and 3-day mail. Additionally, although its mail volume continues to grow, the Postal Service is concerned that customers increasingly are turning to its competitors or alternative communications methods. In 1996, mail volume increased by about one-half of the Service’s anticipated increase in volume. showed that its 1996 operating expenses increased 4.7 percent compared to a 3.9 percent increase in operating revenues. Labor costs, which include pay and benefits, continued to account for almost 80 percent of the Postal Service’s operating expenses, and the Postal Service expects that its costs for compensation and benefits will grow more than 6 percent in 1997. Moreover, controlling costs will be critical with regard to capital investments in 1997, as the Postal Service plans to commit $6 billion to capital improvements. Over the next 5 years, the Service plans to devote more than $14 billion in capital investments to technology, infrastructure improvements, and customer service and revenue initiatives. The Postal Service’s continued success in both operational and financial performance will depend heavily on its ability to control operating costs, strengthen internal controls, and ensure the integrity of its services. However, we found several weaknesses in the Postal Service’s internal controls that contributed to unnecessary increased costs. We reported in October 1996 that internal controls over Express Mail Corporate Accounts (EMCA) were weak or nonexistent, which resulted in the potential for abuse and increasing revenue losses over the past 3 fiscal years. Specifically, we found that some mailers obtained express mail services using invalid EMCAs and that the Postal Service did not collect the postage due. Consequently, in fiscal year 1995, the Postal Service lost express mail revenue of about $800,000 primarily because it had not verified EMCAs that were later determined to be invalid. at customers’ locations to be checked for valid EMCA numbers before they are accepted into the mail system. Similarly, we reported in June 1996 that weaknesses in the Postal Service’s controls for accepting bulk business mail prevented it from having reasonable assurance that all significant amounts of postage revenue due were received when mailers claimed presort/barcode discounts. We reported that during fiscal year 1994, as much as 40 percent of required bulk mail verifications were not performed. Bulk mail totaled almost one-half of the Postal Service’s total revenue of $47.7 billion in fiscal year 1994. At the same time, we found that less than 50 percent of the required follow-up verifications to determine the accuracy of the clerk’s work were being performed by the supervisors. In response to our recommendations, the Postal Service is developing new and strengthening existing internal controls to help prevent revenue losses in bulk mailings. For example, the Postal Service plans to improve the processes used in the verification of mail, including how units are staffed, how verifications are performed, and how results of acceptance work are reported and reviewed. Another area of recent concern has been the overall integrity of the Postal Service’s acquisitions. We concluded, in our January 1996 report, that the Postal Service did not follow required procedures for seven real estate or equipment purchases. We estimated that these seven purchases resulted in the Postal Service’s expending about $89 million on penalties, unusable, or marginally usable property. Three of the seven purchases involved ethics violations arising from the contracting officers’ failure to correct situations in which individuals had financial relationships with the Postal Service and with certain offerors. We also pointed out that the Office of Government Ethics was reviewing the Postal Service’s ethics program and reported that all areas of the program required improvement. The Office of Government Ethics subsequently made a number of recommendations designed to ensure that improvement of the Postal Service’s ethics program continues through more consistent oversight and management support. Since our January 1996 report, the Office of Government Ethics has completed three reviews to follow up on its open recommendations. Recently, the Postal Service developed guidance for avoiding conflicts of interest and filing financial disclosure reports as well as established procedures to ensure that the Office of Government Ethics is notified about all conflict-of-interest violations that are referred to the Department of Justice. As a result of these actions, the Office of Government Ethics closed its remaining open recommendations. Additionally, strengthening program oversight is essential to effective mail delivery. We found that the Postal Service did not exercise adequate oversight of its National Change of Address (NCOA) program. We reported that the Postal Service took a positive step toward dealing with the inefficiencies of processing misaddressed mail. However, at the same time, we found that the NCOA program was operating without clear procedures and sufficient oversight to ensure that the program was operating in compliance with the privacy provisions of federal laws. Accordingly, we recommended that the Postal Service strengthen oversight of NCOA by developing and implementing written oversight procedures. In response to our recommendation, the Postal Service developed written oversight procedures for the NCOA program. Most recently, we issued a report that describes how the Postal Service closes post offices and provides information on the number closed since 1970—over 3,900 post offices. We also provided information on the number of appeals and their dispositions, as well as some information about the communities where post offices were closed in fiscal years 1995 and 1996. Generally, the Postal Service initiated the closing process after a postmaster vacancy occurred through retirement, transfer, or promotion or after the termination of the post office building’s lease. In each case, the Postal Service proposed less costly alternative postal services to the affected community, such as establishing a community post office operated by a contractor or providing postal deliveries through rural routes and cluster boxes. changes to the Private Express Statutes. These Statutes were set up to ensure that the Postal Service has enough revenue to provide universal access to postal services to the general public and that certain mail, such as First-Class, will bear a uniform rate. In our September 1996 report, we emphasized the importance of recognizing the Statutes’ underlying purpose and determining how changes may affect universal mail service and uniform rates. Most important among the potential consequences is that relaxing the Statutes could open First-Class mail services to additional competition, thus possibly affecting postal revenues and rates and the Postal Service’s ability to carry out its public service mandates. However, at the same time, the American public could benefit through improved service. It will be important to take into account the possible consequences for all stakeholders in deciding how mail services will be provided to the American public in the future. Another key reform issue is the future role of the Postal Service in the constantly changing and increasingly competitive communications market. For example, the use of alternative communications methods such as electronic mail, faxes, and the Internet continues to grow at phenomenal rates in the United States and is beginning to affect the Postal Service markets. At the same time, the Postal Service’s competitors continue to challenge it for major shares of the communications market. According to the Postmaster General, the Postal Service has been losing market share in five of its six product lines. It seems reasonable to assume that these alternative communications methods are likely to be used more and more. In addition, international mail has become an increasingly vital market in which the Postal Service competes. In our March 1996 report, we pointed out that, although the Postal Service has more flexibility in setting international rates, it still lost business to competitors because rates were not competitive and delivery service was not reliable. We also identified several issues surrounding the Postal Service’s role in the international mail arena that remain unresolved. Chief among them is the appropriateness of the Postal Service’s pricing practices in setting rates for international mail services. We also reviewed postal reform in other countries to learn about their experiences. Recently, we issued a report on Canada’s efforts since 1981 to reform its postal service, the Canada Post Corporation (CPC). Although CPC retained basic letter mail services at a uniform rate, it also reduced the frequency of mail delivery to some businesses, as well as in urban and rural areas. CPC uses a regulatory rate-making process that includes the opportunity for public comment and government approval for basic domestic and international single-piece letters.