What GAO Found
In March 2021, the U.S. Postal Service (USPS) published a new 10-year strategic plan called Delivering for America with the primary goals of improving its service performance and financial sustainability. Since implementation of this Strategic Plan started, USPS has reported improved service reliability and some progress towards its financial targets. For example, USPS reported that it had met the fiscal year 2022 on-time delivery performance target of 91 percent for First-Class Mail, an improvement over the previous year’s 83 percent. This improvement is, in part, due to changes that USPS adopted in October 2021 to adjust the performance targets and service standards for First-Class Mail and First-Class Packages. USPS also reported in April 2023 that its projected losses decreased by more than half—from $160 billion to $70 billion—in the first two years of the Strategic Plan’s implementation.
USPS’s policies for implementing Strategic Plan projects fully or substantially met six of 11 selected GAO leading practices for project management. However, GAO found that USPS’s implementation policies partially or minimally met five leading practices.