Background
Priority Mail Express (PME), formerly Express Mail, was introduced in the 1970s as the U.S. Postal Service’s fastest product, and as the best option for customers to send time-sensitive documents and packages by offering a next-day to two-day service guarantee. Recent transformations to postal operations under the Delivering for America plan are changing the service standards for this premium product. Specifically, in October 2023, the Postal Service deployed a major operational change called Local Transportation Optimization (LTO) that reduced the number of transportation trips to and from select post offices. With LTO, mail collected at optimized post offices remained overnight, delaying its entry into sorting operations. As a result, most optimized post offices can no longer offer PME with a next-day service guarantee. To support this change, on April 1, 2025, the Postal Service revised PME to a one-to-three-day service guarantee.
What We Did
Our objective was to evaluate the Postal Service’s initial communication of PME service changes within local communities. For this audit, we interviewed headquarters management, judgmentally selected three LTO regions to conduct site visits at post offices and mail processing facilities, and performed a limited-scope mail test.
What We Found
While the Postal Service took steps to notify the public of the revised one-to-three-day PME service standard change that occurred on April 1, 2025, there is room for improvement in its communications on a local level. Specifically, the Postal Service did not provide adequate communication to local post office customers affected by the LTO implementation of the impacts on PME service commitments. The impacts were exacerbated as retail clerks were not provided training on how to accurately advise customers. Further, the Postal Service did not effectively implement a suspension of the PME service commitment guarantee. As a result, we determined the Postal Service incurred approximately $189,600 in questioned costs, over a two-day period.
Recommendations and Management’s Comments
We made seven recommendations to address these issues, and management agreed with three and disagreed with four. Management’s comments and our evaluation are at the end of each finding and recommendation. The U.S. Postal Service Office of Inspector General (OIG) considers management’s comments responsive to recommendations 3, 6, and 7, as corrective actions should resolve the issues. We will work with management on the remaining four recommendations through the audit resolution process.
