RICHMOND, Va. -- An audit recently released by the U.S. Postal Service's Office of the Inspector General sheds some light on why mail delivery has caused headaches across Central Virginia for months.
CBS 6 first reported on the Richmond Processing and Distribution Center, located in Sandston, becoming the Postal Service's first Regional Processing and Distribution Center back in February.
It is part of USPS's 10-year "Delivering for America" plan, meant to consolidate operations from nearby facilities to "reduce transportation costs and improve service reliability."
The audit, dated March 28, suggests the $25.4 million change did the opposite, decreasing service performance for the Richmond region that continued for four months after the launch, and incurring additional labor and transportation costs totaling more than $8 million in questioned costs over the first four months of operation.
The audit says the Postal Service did not adequately prepare for the change, local management was "deficient in operational execution" and management did not train all employees on standard work instructions for new mailing processes, among other things.
However, the audit suggests problems persisted before the change, and the Postal Service "did not take actions to address known weaknesses before converting the Richmond, Virginia facility into a Regional Processing and Distribution Center."
It cites inadequate staffing, low employee availability, and low service performance.
Auditors say they observed "multiple instances of personnel throughout the facility not engaged in work. For example, we witnessed idle terminal handling service waiting for mail, and in one instance, a mail handler sleeping on a parked forklift."
The report also says the auditor observed a "general inattention to detail that resulted in mail left around machines," as well as "mail over two months old left in a container in a truck yard."
The report said within the first four months of the change, there were three different plant managers, and the management turnover rate at the facility was higher than the nationwide average.
Inadequate transportation planning also impacted performance. The audit says lack of planning caused the number of extra trips to be increased from 959 trips to 7,730 trips. Late and canceled trips also increased, incurring $3 million of questioned costs.
It also found the Postal Service conducted no "formal public outreach" before changing mail operations.
Eight different Virginia lawmakers, Republican and Democrat, signed a joint statement in response to the audit, which read the following:
The Office of the Inspector General shared 10 different recommendations with the facility.
Management did respond to the findings and recommendations, pushing to close almost all of the recommendations. The OIG responded saying only one recommendation would be closed.
You can read the full audit as well as management's responses here.
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