Background
The U.S. Postal Inspection Service is responsible for ensuring the safety and security of postal employees, postal facilities, and the mail. The Postal Inspection Service has contracted with Prosegur Services Group Inc. to provide personnel, such as dispatchers, at the National Law Enforcement Communication Centers (NLECC) and security guards at postal facilities in approximately 57 locations nationwide.
What We Did
Our objective was to assess the compliance of the Postal Inspection Service’s Prosegur contract with applicable policies and procedures during fiscal year 2021. We reviewed contract documentation and policies, sampled personnel and invoices from the two NLECC facilities and six sites with security guards, and interviewed Postal Service and Prosegur officials.
What We Found
We found that 35 of the 115 security guards (30 percent) we reviewed worked on the contract without having the proper security clearances. The contract requires that each guard have a favorably adjudicated Postal Service sensitive background investigation prior to accessing postal facilities. However, we identified guards that were denied a clearance or were granted a lower security clearance than required, among other reasons. This occurred because Postal Inspection Service officials did not always follow the security clearance procedures due to a lack of awareness of roles and responsibilities. Additionally, according to management, the Postal Inspection Service revised the security clearance requirement to a non-sensitive background investigation in March 2021 but had yet to update the contract. We also could not verify whether selected contract security guards had completed required training.
Additionally, we found that the Postal Service did not sufficiently measure the quality of Prosegur’s performance for NLECC personnel and security guards. The Postal Service completed some assessments that rated Prosegur’s performance, but these assessments were not consistently produced and did not identify whether the contractor met quality requirements. Lastly, we found that officials at three sites did not record security guard hours and, therefore, could not verify the accuracy of hours billed by the contractor.