The Jacksonville Main Office post office was on track for 12 months’ worth of perfect inventory count reports.
But the unusual perfection sent up red flags for United States Postal Service Office of Inspector General, which later determined the reports were not quite accurate.
“An office with at least $100,000 in annual revenue and three employees overseeing segmented inventory is unlikely to go 12 consecutive months with no overage or shortage of retail floor stock,” an OIG audit overview states.
Every post office around the country is required to file inventory reports that includes overages and shortages of things they sell within their stores like stamps and money orders. OIG uses a variety of methods to identify reports that are deemed anomalies, such as four quarters in a row of perfect inventory counts; and analytical “tripwires” alerted the OIG to the Jacksonville reports, according to the OIG background on the audit released on Wednesday.
