When four auditors arrived at the United States Postal Service facility in Missouri City in late January for an unannounced site visit, they already knew they were dealing with a unique situation.
Kelly Thresher, a deputy assistant inspector general for the USPS Office of Inspector General, said her team typically doesn’t do field investigations of peak season annexes such as the Missouri City facility. But because of media reports in the area documenting problems and the congressional requests from Reps. Sylvia Garcia and Al Green, the office decided to send auditors to figure out what was going on at the facility.
What they uncovered was a systematic failure that led to an estimated 384,000 pieces of delayed mail counted during their three-day visit. The findings were immediately alerted to USPS management and later compiled in an audit released last month,