▶ 0:09:51We'll start now. Um, subcommittee on financial services and general government will come to order. This hearing is titled Oversight of the US Postal Service. Members will have five legislative days within within which to revise and extend their remarks and insert extraneous material into the record. I now recognize myself for an opening statement. I'd like to thank General Hall for being here today. The United States Postal Service is a mainstay for most, if not all, of our constituents and our communities.
▶ 0:10:18Its operations are vast with 640,000 employees working to deliver millions of pieces of mail and packages daily. Yet, the Postal Service has faced significant financial challenges over the last several decades, except for the fiscal year 2022. The postal service has incurred losses in each of the fiscal years since 2007. Last year, the USPS lost more than n billion dollars. The Office of the Inspector General, OIG, plays a critical role in writing the postal service ship.
▶ 0:10:45Its more than 900 employees across the country protect the integrity and the accountability of America's postal service, its revenues, its assets, and its employees. There's no better example of the OIG's importance than with the Postal Service Delivering for America plan or DFA. The DFA has a 10-year strategic plan intended to transform the postal service into self-sustaining and a high performing entity. However, the DFA has been controversial, has impacted mail service and delivery, particularly in rural communities.
▶ 0:11:13UIG has identified issues with the DFA's launch of the regional processing and distribution center in Atlanta, Georgia, and with the local transportation optimization initiative in Richmond, Virginia. And according to the OIG, many of the projections of which the DFA was developed are no longer relevant. In addition to the challenges of the DFA, male crime has increased significantly over the last several years. The OIG plays a critical role investigating crimes that occur within the postal service and throughout the mail system.
▶ 0:11:41For example, in fiscal year 2024, the OIG arrested 89 individuals involved in narcotics trafficking and help secure 65 convictions. God bless you. In total, the OIG's investigative uh division has completed just under,400 investigations leading to 401 arrests and return of approximately 11 million to the postal service. Finally, in conducting many of the audits and investigations, the OIG has embraced the use of technology.
▶ 0:12:08I look forward to learning more about how the OIG leverages technology, including the use of AI to conduct its work. Again, I want to thank you for being here today. And I now recognize the ranking member, Mr. Hoyer. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman, and thank you for scheduling this hearing uh with with Miss Hull. Obviously, this is a very important hearing. The postal service performs an extraordinary service.
▶ 0:12:35In fact, it's one of the first services that our founding fathers established so that the the colonies and later the United States of America could be connected in all of its areas. Uh this is a very very important service that they perform and obviously Mr. Chairman, you mentioned the uh the operating deficit that they have.
▶ 0:12:59One of the reasons for that of course is unlike a private sector company uh it delivers to places that are not profitable and are costly and give a service but do not pay their way if you will.
▶ 0:13:18So, I appreciate uh this hearing so that Miss Hull, the inspector general, and I thank you for coming by my office, can bring us up to date on what you do and what your recommendations are with respect to the postal service going forward. Mr. Chairman, I am a strong supporter of the public postal service.
▶ 0:13:40Do not believe it ought to be privatized because if it is privatized, uh it will obviously curtail particularly in rural areas in our country, services that they now have but which are not coste effective. Uh lastly, uh Mr. Chairman, let me say and I'll submit a statement for the record. And I know you'd like to hear it all, but I'll submit it for the record.
▶ 0:14:05Um, but I would want to say I appreciate my short short discussion both with staff and with you that we are seeking to get the testimony of uh significant number of the agencies over which we have uh jurisdiction.
▶ 0:14:23In particular, of course, I am very concerned about Doge, OM, and OPM, who over the last 90 days have had an extraordinary impact on our country.
▶ 0:14:37Uh my belief is it's going to prove to be a very negative impact on our country, but it's certainly an impact which was not contemplated by the Congress of the United States nor provided for in our budgets and agencies and departments u and offices are being eliminated without congressional authority and uh employees are being fired, rifted, displaced, whatever you want to refer to it
▶ 0:15:08inconsistently with the law. So that I think it is absolutely essential that Mr. Musk, Miss Gleason, uh Mr. Vote and others who have been involved in this process very deeply testify before this committee that has jurisdiction over their actions and their budgets.
▶ 0:15:27Although Doge is using the budget of a previously uh established agency, but within our jurisdiction and and including the White House, which is within our jurisdiction and I'm pleased to hear that we're going to pursue that because I believe that frankly government by executive order was not contemplated by our founding fathers, is not consistent with the Constitution.
▶ 0:15:56Every president has used executive orders extensively. This president, however, seems to be governing by executive order without regard to the authority of the Congress of the United States. So, I'm pleased that we're going to be hearing from the principles who are directly involved in this and I thank the committee uh for pursuing that objective. Thank you very Thank you, Mr. Hoyer.
▶ 0:16:23Today we welcome the testimony of Tammy Hall, Inspector General for the United States Postal Service. General Hall, without objection, your full written testimony will be entered into the record. With that in mind, we ask you to please summarize your opening statement in five Thank you. Good morning, Chairman Joyce, Ranking Member Hoyer, and members of the subcommittee. Thank you for inviting me here today to discuss oversight of the postal service and our fiscal year 2026 budget needs.
▶ 0:16:52We are a datadriven techforward organization using 21st century methods to identify fraud, waste, and abuse and promote economy, efficiency, and integrity in America's postal service. We are lean with around one employee for every 690 postal employees. We are one of the most active OIGs, making nearly 4,000 arrests over five years.
▶ 0:17:12During that period, our identification of fraud has returned more than two and a half billion dollars to the federal government and other victims and about 400 million going directly back to the postal service. We prevented $1.2 billion dollars more in fraud in future fraudulent payments. The postal service is a critical resource to the American public, providing six day a week mail and package delivery in every town, city, and state across the country.
▶ 0:17:39The postal service is at a point where it must make difficult decisions involving trade off trade-offs between service and financial health. We provide essential oversight over the planning and implementation of postal changes including whether they are resulting in expected cost savings and efficiencies.
▶ 0:17:56We also review the resulting impacts on people and businesses in urban, suburban, and rural Timely delivery of mail has been affected sometimes dramatically by implementation challenges with the postal services plan. Rural areas in particular have been impacted more heavily. Our work provides transparency into where and why service issues are occurring at both local and national levels. We have provided actionable solutions to address these impacts.
▶ 0:18:26Additionally, the postal services plan has not yet resulted in the financial gains it had originally projected. Initial financial projections are no longer relevant, and despite our recommendation, the postal service has not publicly shared updates to these projections. We promote transparency into postal finances, as well as provide options to improve the postal services financial health. We have identified over a billion dollars in potential labor cost savings through better management of employees.
▶ 0:18:55We have quantified significant structural issues not experienced by competitors or other government agencies that create large financial burdens. We have also identified opportunities to better invest the hundreds of billions of dollars it is required to set aside to fund retirey benefits. Our work protects the American public and businesses at a time when crimes are becoming more common, more complex, and more difficult to stop.
▶ 0:19:21We are taking aggressive actions to identify and stop theft of checks and credit cards from the mail, including partnering with banks to create sophisticated analytical models that identify exactly where within a facility the mail is being stolen. We also protect the country from organized drug traffickers who collude with postal employees and use the mail to ship narcotics.
▶ 0:19:45Our investigations stop postal employees and health care providers from stealing hundreds of millions of taxpayer and rateayer dollars through false workers compensation claims. We are a proactive and responsive organization to the American public, to postal stakeholders, and to Congress. Our relatively flat budget has resulted in a loss of employees over time.
▶ 0:20:09We make the most of our limited resources by using sophisticated analytics to effectively allocate our budget and personnel. For example, we are beginning to leverage AI to to organize millions of customer complaints, allowing us to quickly find where there may be delivery problems.
▶ 0:20:27Data insights also allow us to determine where our quick response teams should visit, where criminals are recruiting postal employees on social media sites, and where healthc care providers may be fraudulently charging the postal service. While data analytics and AI have allowed us to be more strategic and efficient, they have also highlighted how much more we could do.
▶ 0:20:51We've identified more than a 100,000 potentially actionable leads that we do not have the resources to address. A decline in funding will only make that worse. For fiscal year 2026, we originally asked for a budget of $36.7 million, all of which would be funded by the postal service and not tax revenues. This would allow us to expand our investigative efforts to root out additional fraud, waste, and abuse.
▶ 0:21:19With these funds, we could build new enhanced tools to independently monitor service, increasing our ability to react quickly as the postal service rolls out additional changes that impact Americans and their mail service. We are proud to keep Congress and the American public informed about the postal service. And I'm happy to answer any questions you might have. Incredible timing as well. I now recognize myself for questions.
▶ 0:21:50General Hall, for the first quarter of fiscal year 2025, there were two US Postal Service districts in Ohio, one of which includes my district that were among the worst service performance for single piece first class mail service. The Ohio 1 US Postal Service District, which includes the 14th Congressional District, reported ontime two-day mail service only 72% of the time. 3 to 5day mail was on time approximately 59% of the time.
▶ 0:22:15Disturbingly, the other US postal service district uh was worse scoring for their performance in quarter 1. General Hall, why has service performance declined over the last decade? Your office has undertaken several audits examining the services that US Postal Service provides, particularly as part of a delivering for America plan. Why is on time delivery so difficult? And in your opinion, is delivering for America failing us and how can we ensure that the postal service is providing quality, cost-effective services?
▶ 0:22:45Thank you for the question. I think um some of the challenges the postal service has faced um relate to many of the changes that have been implemented with the DFA. um when mail flows change, it's a big network and when changes are made to the mail flow, uh a lot of things break and that has happened with the DFA. I think some of the things that the postal service could have done to uh prevent some of these things.
▶ 0:23:11We saw in for example in Atlanta when they implemented the large RPDC that they did not do a good job of making sure the staff was ready for it that supervisors were trained that people were in place so that when the changes were implemented they could be absorbed more easily and more quickly. They also have challenges with maintaining uh experienced and trained supervisors across the country in many of their places.
▶ 0:23:39They they um have difficulty with ensuring that employees are are clear on what the expectations are every day. It's a it's um a business that you do basically the same thing day after day after day. So, it's really important that you have staff in place that are that are trained and that they are um understand what the expectations are every day and that supervisors are there to make sure that that what should be occurring is actually occurring.
▶ 0:24:07So, those are some of the things that we've seen in our work and some of the things that we're reporting to the postal service so that they can hopefully address many of these things across the country. Well, what can we ensure do to ensure that the Americans are is the postal service is actually servicing rural Americans? I think one of obviously I'm I'm from a rural area and I really appreciate the service that the postal service provides rural communities across the country.
▶ 0:24:37It's really really important to all areas of the country but particularly in rural America. One of the reasons that we launched some of our work recently on local transportation optimization, which was kind of a pilot for the postal service to see how if they change the way they pick up mail across the country, instead of picking up at the end of the day, they pick it up the next day, how that would impact some of these communities. And when they did that, we wanted to go out as well and see how that what that impact would look like.
▶ 0:25:07And we saw significant impacts across America but mostly in those rural areas. Rural areas were much more likely to be impacted negatively in the service um with that initiative. So the postal service saw that as well and then they went in and changed made a change to their service standards to increase the amount of time that they would have in those areas.
▶ 0:25:31We want to keep um up the oversight over the over the roll out of that regional transportation optimization so that we can not only um evaluate impacts on across the country, but to focus on what that is doing in rural America. I now recognize the ranking member, Mr. Hoyer, for any questions he may have. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.
▶ 0:26:00Uh first of all, let let me ask you uh what impact did the uh have on your service uh of freezing at the 24 levels of funding? I'm sorry. What impact did the continuing resolution at 24 numbers have on your agency? and what could you not do that you think you needed to do in order to effectively do your job? Yeah. Yeah.
▶ 0:26:30Appreciate it. Um we have over the last couple years lost more than 10% of our staff and as a result we have that's kind of what has contributed to our identification of these leads. We're getting better in the technology and how we use technology to identify leads. But technology does not investigate crime. It does not arrest people. It does not put people in in jail. and it doesn't do audit work so that we can report and make recommendations to the postal service.
▶ 0:26:59There are things that computers do very well and there are things that we need people to do. So, we've had to reduce both auditors and investigators by more than 10%. And what did can you uh estimate the cost of that the the the recovery or the fraud or waste that was not uh identified? There's there's clearly an impact in that.
▶ 0:27:22We identify um about $13 for every dollar that is spent on our budget. So there's a there's a significant impact in that. I think some we as an OIG are a little bit different than other IG's in that we have slightly more than half of our staff are in the investigative side because the postal service has such a large employee population that move things of value across a network. There's lots of opportunity for mischief.
▶ 0:27:49And so so there's impacts not just in identification of potential efficiencies. There's also significant significant implications on our ability to stop crime uh shipment of narcotics also um theft of checks and and uh credit cards in the mail. What was your total savings for the previous fiscal year from this from the investigations that you did?
▶ 0:28:15Yeah, I we generally identify about a billion dollars on the audit side a year and then about $250 million or so in the investigative side, but we'll get you the specific numbers on that. Thank you for that. Last question would be u there's been discussion about privatizing the services of the postal service. uh have you made an analysis of what the cost would be in terms of service if that should occur?
▶ 0:28:46Yeah. Um we recently issued a a white paper our re a research paper on where we looked at 25 posts around the world and some of those posts have been partially or fully privatized. We wanted to kind of uh look at the implications of that what it might mean for the postal service and and what we found as it relates to privatization is it's a long road. It's not an easy thing to do and it takes a long time for those that have been privatized.
▶ 0:29:15In fact, in the last 10 years, only one post in the world has been privatized. Most of the privatizations occurred much longer ago. Um the only post in the last 10 years that has been privatized is is the Israeli post, which is much much smaller, as you can imagine, than the postal service. Um the uh the posts the larger posts that have been privatized that we looked at um it took years to privatize.
▶ 0:29:40The service is different there than it than it um is in many of the non-privatized posts. and uh some of the uh the long-term large liabilities that the postal service is facing, some of those that were there in some of those other posts were moved to the government to be paid for before the privatization occurred. So, so that the post could be privatized.
▶ 0:30:08There's lots and lot it's complicated and and if any um of your staffs are interested in digging in deeper on that analysis, it's a really good paper, but there it's it's very detailed. We we'd love to sit down and talk with you all more about it. Thank you. Perhaps you could submit that for the record. Sure. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. You're welcome, sir. Uh the chair now recognizes uh the Congresswoman from Iowa, Miss Simpson.
▶ 0:30:34Thank you uh to our chairman from Ohio, the great state, and our our ranking member as well for holding this hearing. And thank you, Inspector General Hall, for for coming to testify today. You know, I think it's absolutely critical that the American people can trust that they're important documents um whether it's bills or just regular mail or election ballots that those are getting from A to B safely and securely. And um so I'm encouraged uh to hear more about your process in in making sure that we are eliminating that ph uh fraud, waste, and abuse. and we are going after those bad actors.
▶ 0:31:03Um so that's what I want to start with because last year in response to some reports about missing mail um from my district and we had some inconclusive responses from USPS regarding that mail um I actually sent this letter to um the inspector general um postmaster to postmaster de Joy and then he actually referred that on to you. So um I think that um again to instill that confidence in the US Postal Service I think it's really important to understand how these concerns are handled once they reach your your level.
▶ 0:31:33So what processes do you have in place for investigating reports like this of improper deliveries, missing mail, um those sorts of things? Yeah, thank you for the question. We we uh we have some pretty sophisticated data analytics tools and when we get a request particularly request um from uh from a member of Congress, we run that request through our data analytics tools to see if we can identify whether other we see other activity by maybe a a carrier in
▶ 0:32:04a PL in a postal facility or an employee in a plant to see if other other things are of value are disappearing that we can connect to that. And then um oftent times we see that we may already be investigating an employee that and this kind of fits into an existing case, but if not, we can put it all together and then submit it to an agent to to dig in deeper on.
▶ 0:32:29But just generally, our hotline is one of the most active hotlines in the IG community. We receive between usually between a 100,000 and 200,000 hotline complaints a year, sometimes more than that. I think last year we got almost 400,000 complaints. So there's a lot for us to look at and so it's important for us to use artificial intelligence tools to analyze all of those complaints. That was going to be my next question. So you talk about all of those complaints.
▶ 0:32:55Are you seeing does your technology allow you then to flag okay we've had 10 complaints about the same person or so it allows you to categorize that and then more a accurately go after where you need to use your resources. It does. It does. And one of the most exciting things that it has allowed us to do is to um go back to clos cases that we've made over time over the last like five or 10 years and identify what kinds of things make for a good mail theft investigation or make for a good uh healthcare
▶ 0:33:26fraud investigation. So, and then run that against the uh the complaints, not just our hotline complaints, but also the complaints that come into the postal service. The postal service gets thousands of complaints every day as you can imagine from from across the country. So we're able to evaluate the complaints the postal service has as well. And that's how we've identified I mentioned a 100,000 potentially actionable leads.
▶ 0:33:52We have used artificial intelligence and large language modeling to evaluate all of those complaints and identify the ones that look very very similar to things we've already investigated and identified criminal activity on and and it's um it's been technology has been a very good tool for us. Well, and I I mentioned obviously that you know we got kind of a lackluster response from USPS which is why we had to send this letter in the first place.
▶ 0:34:18So I guess my next question you knowing all that and knowing that's your process, have you taken what you've learned in some of these cases and then how do you make those recommendations to USPS on how to improve processes and and transparency especially when it comes to missing mail like because again we we asked them our our constituents were very concerned. I mean this is people are sending their bills in and they're not getting paid and that has real financial impact on their bottom line. Right. Right.
▶ 0:34:42Um we we do make recommendations to the postal service to address that and and we have a pretty good relationship with them. But as you can imagine those complaints that you experienced in your district are happening all across the country. There's there are particularly in the last few years there have been lots of concerns about um male potential male theft or mail just um getting lost in the system.
▶ 0:35:09So, uh we have done uh we we have done uh local work too where we'll go in and look at um uh we look at the data identify where the hot spots are around the country and we'll send a team in that looks at a plant and the delivery units around that plant to identify specific recommendations we need to make to that area. So, um but we can only do what eight or 10 of those a year.
▶ 0:35:37So there's there's many many more that that um have issues. Well, if you can flag for us and I'll uh wrap here. If you can flag for us how many of those investigations don't have you know at what point you need more resources for those um and how many maybe are going by the wayside or continuing because you don't have that that would be helpful. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you. Chair now recognize the gentleman from Wisconsin, Mr. Pokean, for his five minutes. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Appreciate it. Um thank you for being with us. Excuse me.
▶ 0:36:06So I would do want to ask on um the LTO audit report. Uh that we were one of the two experiments in the country uh Wisconsin and Virginia. This is when the the former postmaster general and I do have to admit I get in a little joy when I say former um about the postmaster general. Uh he said that um when I talked about the problems that we've had with it, he said, "Well, the first rocket ship that went up blew up." Which was not exactly the most satisfying answer I've had.
▶ 0:36:34Um, but you did have an in-depth audit report that outlined a number of harmful effects. You concluded that uh the implementation of it in Wisconsin not only had a decrease in service, but in rural areas even more of a decrease in service. I think the single piece first class two-day mail declined for all but one week and the 3 to 5 day performance declined every single week after implementation.
▶ 0:36:59So clearly the the response by someone who's normal would have been to say we we better you know re-evaluate this before we go further and instead this is being expanded now nationwide if I understand right. So I guess my questions are can you talk a little more about what we learned on those harmful effects and if this is going to be rolled out nationwide which I if I understand right it is being rolled out what's being done differently so that they also don't have rocket ships that blow up.
▶ 0:37:26Yeah, that's a great question and and yeah, I um it was our our team um enjoyed being in Wisconsin, did some really good work there, I think, and identified some uh some significant impacts, not just on service, but also just on how the roll out occurred.
▶ 0:37:44um there were collection boxes that that weren't being um emptied so that the mail could enter into this system because they didn't understand how the process worked and that some of the drivers that went out to to pick up the mail at the end of the day also were picking up mail from collection boxes. So, lots of challenges.
▶ 0:38:02Uh I I uh the postal service as you know um a after the pilots that occurred in those locations uh submitted a service standard change and is uh uh to give themselves more time in some of these rural areas to get the mail into the system and is rolling out I believe actually went forward with the roll out on April 1st.
▶ 0:38:27So we will be evaluating our audit teams will be out there looking at the impact on on rural areas and just on America in general to see how how the roll out is occurring and whether or not because the postal service I think one of their uh one of their arguments for it is that it doesn't it's not going to delay beyond the five days. They have a one to five day just stop you there.
▶ 0:38:5224% of Wisconsin's affected by this roll out and it sounds like you're saying they understand there's going to be delays in mail. We sent something recently um from Milwaukee to I'm sorry Madison to Milwaukee and it took three weeks to be delivered now. Yeah. So, and it's our mail. So, actually I know it happened as opposed to you know sometimes you get the stories from folks but we also had the processing facility consolidation that also was paused. I'm not sure if it's restarted again, but you know, has that been restarted?
▶ 0:39:21And is there anything that we can do to unbreak what Postmaster DeJoy broke um by doing that consolidation? Because our service, not just from the LTO rollout, but because of the processing center rollout has really deteriorated in Wisconsin. Yeah, I appreciate what your experience being different than what the postal service is reporting in its service scores.
▶ 0:39:42And that's one of the reasons that we we're requesting a little bit of additional money so that we can build a ser kind of a validation of the service that they're reporting because right now um we do not have the resources to do an independent validation of the service scores the postal service is reporting. We we just don't have that. But we we're getting really good at data and how to use data.
▶ 0:40:07I think there's a real opportunity for us to leverage that and be able to tell you and to hear from you what you're experiencing and to validate that on the in the postal service. Do you know if they reinstituted the processing center consolidation? I don't know, but we'll get back to you on that. Appreciate that. And then just one last question. How much interaction do you have with Um, not a lot. We did we had one meeting with the Doge employees that were at the postal service. And what was that meeting about?
▶ 0:40:35It was it was just a a kind of an introduc in introductory meeting with them kind of so that we could share a bit of of what we do as in our office. Yeah. And who came from Doge? There were two Doge employees that are at the pulse. Could you get us the names of those folks and if you have it the contacts because as a member of Congress there's no email or phone number on the Doge website. We called using our congressional lison contacts. Had no luck. We contacted the White House. They said call back in 10 minutes.
▶ 0:41:02We called them back in 10 minutes and we never have gotten a contact yet as a member of Congress for anyone at Doge. So if you have two emails, phone numbers, I'd like to know the names and the contact information because at least uh that'd be very helpful. I really appreciate it. Thank you. Yield back. Chair now recognize the gentleman from North Carolina for five minutes of questions. Any uh Mr. Edwards? Thank you, Mr. Chair. Uh Miss Hall, thanks for being with us today.
▶ 0:41:31Uh, as concisely as you can, would you tell us what is the job description of the inspector general of United States Postal Service? It's a great question. 30 seconds or less. 30 seconds or less. Yeah. To provide oversight of the postal service to promote integrity in the postal system. And am I to assume that that position is independent of the postal service? Yes.
▶ 0:41:58Who who decides to hire the inspector inspector general? I'm looking for your direct report. Yeah, at the postal service, it's diff it's different in the postal service than it is in some agencies, but at the postal service, the um inspector general is hired by the independent governors on the board of governors. And just recently, it's a little nuanced because um uh two or three years ago, we we also um became the overseers of the postal regulatory commission.
▶ 0:42:28And so the commissioners on the postal regulatory commission are now also involved in the hiring process. I was already the inspector general at the postal service. So they they were not involved when I was originally selected, but they would be involved in the future. And so these boards or entities that you're describing is responsible for your hire. Are they part of the postal service?
▶ 0:42:53They they um are they're like a board of directors over the postal service, I guess. So, yes. Who who do you report to directly? Um as in the inspector general, I have the responsibility to keep the head of the agency and Congress fully and currently informed. So we mostly connect in the Congress with the oversight committees and then with the board of governors.
▶ 0:43:16Um so just just an observation more for this panel I think than than for you is I'm not detecting independence. When when I think of an inspector general my my vision is that is the auditor of an entity.
▶ 0:43:35uh someone who is totally severed from the decisions, the process and I and and as a public servant, I take a lot more confidence in knowing that who we have o overseeing and reporting back to Congress is really independent of the decision makers, the people that would hire that in individual. The thing that queued me in into this was uh Miss Hull's uh opening statement.
▶ 0:44:04Uh she used the words we an hour probably about 50 times. That doesn't indicate to me in independence. Uh nothing against you at all. I'm not critic I'm not criticizing you. I'm I'm just wondering if we've got the right structure particularly with an entity that's costing taxpayers uh so much money. And so that that's a that's a great big red flag here.
▶ 0:44:31And also I have to observe the number of times that you requested funds. Uh probably at least three I times in this testimony I heard you say we're asking for a number of funds.
▶ 0:44:48So I just suggest to the panel uh that doesn't reek of independence and I think that if we really want a more efficient government the folks that we have overseeing it and reporting back to Congress should truly be independent and so I'm hoping that uh that we can pursue this in in some manner.
▶ 0:45:07My last question is really uh because the the talk is that the United States Postal Service is not funded by the taxpayer that it somewhat stands independent but when I look at the fact that we've got losses year after year those losses have to be backfilled by capital from somewhere.
▶ 0:45:32So could you describe to this panel uh where where the operate what are what are the source of funds for operating capital uh in the years where we run deficits? Yeah, that's a great question. The the postal service is is um very cashoriented business as you can imagine. Uh the uh uh the long-term liabilities are very significant for the postal service.
▶ 0:45:58So in in many cases when the postal service runs a deficit, it is not contributing some of to some of those long-term liabilities like uh some of the retirement fund liabilities uh have uh they are not making the contributions to those that they would make if they did not run a loss. So uh so that's that's the short answer. There's a longer answer and we can get back to you and your staff and I would love to talk to your staff more about that independence thing as well.
▶ 0:46:27So, thank you, Mr. Chair. I yield. Thank you, Mr. Edwards. Now, recognize a gentle woman from Washington, uh, Mrs. Gluen County. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Brave attempt at Glusen Camp. Um, we're doing we're doing great. Um, my name's Marie. Glad to meet you. Um, so my background, we used to run an auto repair shop. And, um, one of the things that you know about if you're working in, you know, um, have you ever heard of the term Kia Boys? No.
▶ 0:46:56So is this phenomena where like basically they've um you know these keyless entry cars they can dupe the signal and you can like buy the dupe um online and um some of these Kia have become uninsurable in certain cities like the theft rates are just like off the charts. There's a real problem.
▶ 0:47:20Um, and we're seeing that in other things just like the idea that technology is going to solve a problem is often uh, you know, it's kind of a false hope. Um, so this is kind of intersecting with another issue which is in I live in a really rural community. Um, we are losing ouries handover fist and so more and more and we're an older population so we are more and more people who are getting their prescriptions through the mail.
▶ 0:47:47Um, I've heard about a shift to using digital keys on US postal boxes and I'm wondering um, you know, I I know that like there's a high incentive to get into those boxes if you're trying to steal prescription drugs. Um, and I also know that you know when there is a um, you know, right now I know if you if you get one key, you get a certain set of boxes.
▶ 0:48:13If you look at the digital key, I'm I'm just wondering what you have learned in the implementation of these digital key systems, what the capacity is for um shifting to a dual, you know, analog and digital. Um what you're hearing. Yeah, great question. We've done some work uh on mail theft in general and how the postal service is responding broadly to mail theft. Our our own jurisdiction as it relates to mail theft is internal mail theft by postal employees.
▶ 0:48:40the inspection service has the rest of it which is significant and so we've done a lot of work in different areas of the country to look at how they're rolling out some of the keys that you're talking about. I think they have they there's multiple different solutions there and I think um some of them are more two-factor authenticated multiffactor authenticated than others and so we're looking at that in some of our audit work.
▶ 0:49:05Um, I don't know specifically what we found or if we I don't believe we found any of that duplication that you're talking about yet, but I could see it as a potential problem and something that we will be looking at as we move further forward and as they roll out different technologies in that space. You know, it's like once you reach a certain scale, there's such a strong incentive for criminal actors. And so, it's like you can think it's okay, right, till you get all the way in the water.
▶ 0:49:29Um and so like I would just urge you to look at other models where that has led to profound uh you know marginal rate of return for criminal actors and stealing my community's very necessary prescription drugs. Um so um another question I had um you know male carriers are like right up there with fire firefighters right like they are very they are a really critical lynch pin um in people having a sense of community.
▶ 0:49:58I remember reading a study that people who know the name of their mail carrier live an additional like three years. Like just the sense of community connection and all these ancillary things are critical to having a sense of a democratic country uh nation where we know each other and have a system of laws and order. Um so as you're making but but we're seeing changes in delivery times and we're seeing a lot of I think what Mr.
▶ 0:50:22Spokane was getting at here with um rural communities being um sites for efficiency, but they're critical for our sense of community um and for rural businesses. Um every business that ships out is really relying on these. So, I'm wondering um what other options are there besides cutting down service um that rural communities um take rely on to keep costs down uh without implementing uh impacting delivery times for our packages?
▶ 0:50:52Yeah, it's I think obviously there are there are general efficiencies in the system um trying to identify um more effective or efficient ways of doing business. I'm not sure that those are significant enough that we we identify probably about a a billion dollars a year in in efficiencies to be gained in this system and also potentially revenue uh additional revenue to to be gained. The postal service is losing more than that in its finances.
▶ 0:51:22And so it's it's they're they're making some some tradeoffs. I'm not, you know, I know that that there's concern about some of the tradeoffs that that they're making, some of the decisions that we're making, and we um we at the have have similar concerns. We want to make sure that service is maintained in rural America the way that it needs to be maintained. I think some of those choices are are going to be some of the difficult things moving forward for the postal service as it looks as it at its financial condition and determines.
▶ 0:51:51But we've also identified some structural issues and I want to point to those. Those are larger and more maybe more challenging because they'll require legislation to uh to fix but there are some opportunities in those larger structural areas and we can talk more about that if your staff is interested. Thank you. Back. Thank you, Mr. Joyce. I appreciate that welcomed uh introduction.
▶ 0:52:22Um it's my job on this side of the a back cleanup for us. I'm the fourth person to go here. We've talked about a couple of different important issues and I appreciate you being with us today. I want to talk a little about safety of our letter carriers. Uh because since 2000 over since 2020, over 2,000 carriers have been assaulted or robbed often for the arrow keys that Miss Clusen Camp Perez was talking about. um that unlocked dozens of mailboxes, opening the door to identity theft and financial fraud.
▶ 0:52:51Shockingly, and this is crazy to me, a mere 14% of those incidents uh wind up uh becoming prosecuted. In one case, a carrier was robbed at gunpoint and the criminal got just 30 days. Uh I think the safety of our postal workers shouldn't depend on geography or a prosecutor's discretion like that. It must be a national standard backed by serious consequences. Uh, Miss Hall, are you aware of the Protect Our Letter Carriers Act, HR1065? Yes.
▶ 0:53:21I'm a proud co-sponsor of this legislation that would strengthen postal worker safety by funding secure replacements for those arrow keys. It would increase penalties for assaults on carriers and would require each US attorney's office to designate a prosecutor to address the current 86% uh nonprosecution rate. Based on your experience, the job that you're in, and your position, do you believe these provisions would help reduce the incidence of assaults on letter carriers?
▶ 0:53:50It seems it seems that they would. I I I don't, you know, I haven't um analyzed the legislation to that level, but um but we have we have big concerns as well. I we have more than h more than half of our staff is law enforcement, and we work with the inspection service on uh on many of the cases that we that we start. oftentimes we're not sure at the beginning of a case whether it's an external or an internal or both that have collaborated on committing criminal activity.
▶ 0:54:19So we're supportive of the inspection service and in its efforts to prosecute these cases. Great. I'm a little biased. I sponsor the legislation so I think it will help. But tell us based upon, you know, your experience and your position, what else can and should be done to help increase the safety of our letter carriers? Yeah, I think um it's a it's a great question.
▶ 0:54:40I think um making sure that that there is you know good supervision that supervisors know the their letter carriers and that they're very you know attentive to their needs that that when a letter carrier is in a difficult neighborhood because sometimes we forget these carriers are in they're not all of the neighborhoods that these carriers are in every day look like your neighborhood or my neighborhood. oftentimes they're in difficult neighborhoods and delivering mail every day to challenging in challenging places.
▶ 0:55:10So, making sure that they're that they're attuned to the needs of the letter carriers and and watching out for for their um the carriers and being responsive when the carrier needs help. Great. In my two minutes left, I just want to shift gears a little bit to a more local issue. And the post offices throughout the nation are quite often cornerstones of our communities. Uh but I have a frustrating uh thing going on in my district about two years ago on about May 26 of 2023.
▶ 0:55:38The post office in Sound Beach announced a what they called a temporary closure two years ago for what they called structural repairs. And yet despite them labeling it as temporary, that closure still exists today. Uh for those two years, nearly 9,000 residents have been left without access to essential postal services and have been forced to go to a neighboring township, Miller Place. just to pick up their mail. Uh I've repeatedly tried to work with some of your colleagues in the postal service to clearly I'm talking about the management level.
▶ 0:56:07I'm not talking about the letter carriers who are hard at work every day. The management folks have blown us off for the last couple of years just throwing bureaucracy at us. And I think that the sound beach ex uh case is a clear example of what happens when the postal service ignores its duty to serve the public. Mr. Hoyer talked about the roots being in the constitution. in article 1 section 8 clause 7 gave Congress the opportunity to establish a post office and it rightfully did.
▶ 0:56:34But by having essentially a um a closure of the post office that they're dismissing as temporary but really seems to the community as permanent is quite frustrating. So So my question to you is what does temporary mean in the post office with respect to a closure? Is it a day? Is it a week? Is it a month? Is it a year? Is it uh or is it just an excuse to to deny uh customer service?
▶ 0:57:01We've done some work in this space in the past and and I don't know the last report that we issued in this area because it's something that comes up uh relatively uh frequently. Uh so I don't know the answer on the definition the postal service uses for temporary. But I do know your the problem that you express is not just in your district. It's in in other places across the country. And it's something that um we'll we will look back into the work that we've done.
▶ 0:57:29And if there uh if there's a need to to go back in and look at that again to see what the postal service is doing with these temporary closures, we'll we will get with your staff and talk more about it. We'd be happy to because I know it's a concern that happens uh frequently. Uh if you'll indulge me, Mr. Chairman, you as the inspector general oversee fraud issues, right? What's the definition of fraud?
▶ 0:57:54fraud is uh this is probably not the dictionary definition, but it's taking money that doesn't belong to you with the intent to deceive. It's doing something with the intent to deceive in order to get a gain. Yeah. I think that telling our customers, this is a temporary disclosure, temporary closure is an element of fraud. They're not telling the truth. They intend to save money by keeping services low, reduced, or even zero. And I think it's fraudulent. I think your office can look into that. We can look into it. Thank you, Chairman.
▶ 0:58:26Uh, chair now recognizes a gentleman from Georgia, Mr. Bishop, for any questions he may have for five minutes. Thank you very much. Uh I was looking at the postal regulatory commission's advisory opinion um and it made a number of recommendations.
▶ 0:58:52Uh can you comment on the extent to which the uh postal service has acted on those I probably am not the best person to answer that question.
▶ 0:59:08I don't know what they have done in response to the advisory opinion except for the fact that they went and and went ahead and rolled out the change uh on April the 1st and the advisory opinion actually suggested that they that it was not ready for roll out. Right. Right. uh and of course it identified uh a number of uh deficiencies in modeling and uh etc.
▶ 0:59:36Uh let me uh you mentioned that there had been some consultations with your office with Doge and uh I understand that uh uh on I know that on January 13th the postal service announced a voluntary early retirement program uh in an effort to reduce its workforce by an additional 10,000 people.
▶ 1:00:02And apparently in 2021 uh they shed about 30,000 uh employees. Uh as the inspector general uh did do you feel that does your office feel that it was wise to make staffing reductions of that scale uh without regard for the existing local resources and the needs?
▶ 1:00:27And could a reduction in the workforce of this size aggravate uh the already identified uh uh delayed mail and inefficient delivery problems uh experienced by the postal service? I am I imagine that it could um I also think that um the postal service is a massive organization and it's hiring thousands of people every year and letting thousands of people go every year.
▶ 1:00:57So, it just depends on where those those people uh are um are reduced from. If if those locations are ones where they're already understaffed, then obviously it will have a significant impact, but it it also could be absorbed because of the size of the employee population. It just depends on where that occurs. But you're also in hiring the new people.
▶ 1:01:22Uh, and can you tell me is there a net uh onetoone replacement uh in people who are leaving and those who are coming in? I I don't know the answer to that and I I doubt that there is that within the scope of your your work. Yes. Yes. And we've done some work on on hiring at the postal service and and identified challenges in the hiring process and identified uh m many times where employee availability is a contributor to service issues.
▶ 1:01:51Sometimes they have employees that are on the roles that aren't coming in into work and that's part of the problem. Sometimes they haven't hired effectively and brought in the people that they need to get the work. Isn't that a human resource personnel management? Isn't that a management function? Yes. But we do audit work. We don't handle that. We do audit work to to do oversight of the postal services activities. But you track that though as a part of your work. Yes. Yes.
▶ 1:02:16And I know that I have experienced uh and my constituents complain to me constantly that uh they go to postal post offices and they don't have enough workers there to uh to accommodate their needs. They have to wait or sometimes the post offices and some of our rural communities don't even open because they don't have uh enough personnel in the event that there's a sickness or or an accident that uh the post office post.
▶ 1:02:44So I mean where where do we go from here and what is the impact of your recommendations and the commission's recommendations on the postal service and was it really a good decision for Congress to take away the real oversight that Congress had uh previously uh in running and overseeing the post P postal service.
▶ 1:03:11When I first came to Congress, uh I was on the post office and civil service committee and we had the postmaster general in frequently uh talking about these matters. But uh once congressional direct oversight was removed, it appeared to appears to me that uh the service was degraded and it has constantly gone down. I think my time is about expired. So, if you have a comment on that, I'd appreciate it.
▶ 1:03:41Thank you. Yeah, we'll we will continue. I think we just finished some work in in in your district as well, looking at service in Georgia and and we will continue to um issue reports in that area to to shed light on where some of these problems occur and to make recommendations for the postal service to address some of the staffing challenges that they face. Thank you very much. Uh we now recognize a gentleman from Maryland, Mr. Ivy. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
▶ 1:04:09Just to sort of pick up on that line of questioning from Mr. Bishop and Mr. Loa, I mean, I get the same letters apparently they do uh from people who are um you know, unable to get into the uh post office during the hours it's supposed to be open. Um you know, it's not staffed sufficiently or just closed entirely. Uh and I, you know, my district is fairly densely populated. This letter I just got a little while ago is from a town called Laurel.
▶ 1:04:37It's about I don't know 10 miles from here or something like that. Uh fairly heavily populated. I I I will say um I've been hearing about these same kind of concerns for a while too and all the way back to when I was a staffer in the 80s here in in Congress. And I guess I'm not understanding, and I appreciate your answers on this, but I guess I'm not really hearing how we actually are going to fix the problem or what steps the postal service is going to take.
▶ 1:05:04Um, hopefully sooner rather than later to address these concerns. I mean, what what what are the immediate steps that are going to be taken in the short run to address this? I appreciate the question. I am the inspector general for the postal service, so I can't answer for them on what steps they're going to take to address these issues, but I will make we will continue to make recommendations and hold them accountable to the degree that we can in our work to address some of these concerns.
▶ 1:05:35Fair enough. But as the auditor, you've taken a look at steps that have been taken previously. Have there been steps that have been taken recently that have been effective and would lead you to recommend going forward you ought to take these steps to address this problem? Yeah, I I there is one thing that the postal service has done in the last probably three or four years is they have they have reduced the time to hire and so they're getting people on board more quickly.
▶ 1:06:06The one of the challenges with that is that sometimes the people that come on board don't have a good sense of what the job is all about and they arrive and they don't stick. They don't last. Retention is a challenge for many of these employees.
▶ 1:06:22So there's there's so so we we issued a report on hiring and found that we said that that the reduction of time to hire is good, but you have to pair it up with the the the interview process or at least an ability for the candidate to to experience what they're getting themselves into. Fair enough. I got to move to my next set of questions, but if you could, you know, supply whatever additional comments on that, that would be appreciated. When Mr. Pokean was asking you questions.
▶ 1:06:52You raised Doge as u a topic and you said I guess you'd been part of a meeting that had been We had We had one short meeting with the Doge representatives at the postal service. Okay. Um and when did they come? Um I I don't know when they came, but I know we met with them probably three or four weeks ago. All right. Were you in the meeting? Yes. How long did the meeting last? It was probably 45 minutes to an hour. Okay.
▶ 1:07:18Um, so you covered some ground then during the 45 minutes and they were asking about what what was the thrust of the conversation. It was mostly it was mostly us talking about our work. So it was less about them asking us questions and mostly us sharing generally what we do and and some of our results. Well, I would ask if you know Mr. Pokeen has uh asked that you provide the names of the people who attended.
▶ 1:07:44If you could provide a letter that summarizes uh I think in some level of detail sort of what was covered, I'd greatly appreciate that. Uh and I also want to ask you, you mentioned a couple of things about uh leads that you don't have the resources to investigate. Uh and I think you also said you can only do eight to 10 of those per year. I wasn't sure what the those were. Yeah. Yeah. Um that when I was speaking of those, it's not the same as the hundred thousand.
▶ 1:08:14Okay. That would take forever for us to get through if it only went to eight or 10 a year. Um the eight or 10 a year is our um where we go out and look at a plant and the three or four delivery units around that plant. So it's kind of a community look at how the postal service is serving that with respect to deliveries. Yeah. Yeah. Processing and deliver. We just finished one in in uh in make in Georgia in that area. All right. Let me go back to the 100,000. What resources would you need to be able to move forward with those?
▶ 1:08:40Um, we we would um appreciate just enough resources to get us back that $36 um million dollars that we asked for would um would really be helpful in that space to hire additional investigators. Investigators it and and and auditors, but investigators would help us make progress on the 100. Real quick to Mr. Loa's point, about 14% are prosecuted when they commit robberies against uh letter carriers who conducts those investigations.
▶ 1:09:10That's the inspection service, the postal inspection. So, not us. We're the we're the external law enforcement entity. The inspection service is the internal law enforcement. All right. Have you done an of frankly the caliber of the investigations they're conducting? We did look at that as part of our work on on mail theft. Um because it does raise a question, right? It seems as if there would be better prosecution rate, but there's there are lots of issues with that. and we didn't see a lot of problems with the caliber of the investigations that were conducted.
▶ 1:09:40So, okay, we can get you that report if you're interested. Yeah, I'd be curious as to how you can only be at 14%. I appreciate the new bill that's being offered, but they're federal investigations and you got sentencing guidelines governing the sentences. Anyway, I don't know that that's going to fix it. Seems like there must be another piece with respect to the strength of the cases that are being brought. But, uh, Mr. Chairman, I yield back and thank you for your indulgence. The chair would now recognize uh Mr.
▶ 1:10:08Alfred uh for any questions he may have in this lightning first round here. Five minutes. Thank you. Let me get my act together here just a second. Sorry, I just left the Small Business Administration uh markup. Uh but thank you chairman uh Joyce and ranking member my good friend Stenny Hoyer. Thank you uh for holding this important hearing today. The post office is one of the few federal institutions explicitly established by the constitution.
▶ 1:10:35The founders saw it as a core function of the federal government, one of the few that they believe Washington should handle. In recent years, the post office has consistently failed though to meet its basics obligation, delivering mail on time. It's one of the most common sources of complaints that I hear from my constituents back in the fourth congressional district of the great state of Missouri. Rural Americans in particular are being left behind waiting days or even weeks for letters and packages to arrive.
▶ 1:11:04A small business in my district called Cackle Hatchery is one of the few remaining hobby hatcheries of chickens in the United States and they rely on the United States Postal Service to deliver these live chickens that have a lifespan in the mail uh of about 5 days. The problem is they're not getting there. The chicks end up dead. The insurance is not covering it, and they're losing $40,000 a month.
▶ 1:11:31Cackle Hatchery raises and mails the chicks to make a living for themselves and to offer these chicks that grow up to be chickens. That, you know, the price of eggs these days, we need laying chickens. Well, another constituent has told me that due to delays in receiving their paycheck, they face having their electricity and heat shut off due to overdue bills. They want to pay the bills, but it's not getting to the people, the utility companies.
▶ 1:11:59Delays like this are why I was proud to introduce the Pony Up Act alongside Congressman Graves and Congressman Clever, a bipartisan bill to force the post office to compensate constituents for any late fees due to delayed uh late delivery of bills. Miss Hall, thank you uh so much for being here. We had a great discussion before this committee hearing began.
▶ 1:12:22Um, do you think the Pony Up Act or similar legislation would help incentivize the post office to deliver mail to rural Americans on time? I haven't analyzed the bill in depth, but I I do believe that um work to um put um attention on this area and to really push the postal service to deliver on time would be a good thing. Um, I'm very interested in in the business that you spoke of that that ships baby chicks.
▶ 1:12:53Um, we are in the middle of doing an audit right now on the shipment of li we the postal service and we because they do we call it shipment of lives in the in the mail. And so we've never looked at that as part of our work. And uh so we thought that would be a really good area for us to look at because the postal service is the only only um entity, logistics entity that that ships baby chicks, things like that in in the mail.
▶ 1:13:21So that I'm not sure we've spoken with your constituent. We've spoken to others in the business. So maybe we could reach out to you and and talk with I will facilitate that for you and and love for you to come down and visit. It's a great operation there in our district. Um going to move off my scripted questions. Sorry to the staff on that, but you and I were talking. What problems has Amazon posed for you uh in delivering US mail?
▶ 1:13:46Uh the added increase in Amazon deliveries even on Sunday by US postal Um I'm not sure I I can answer that question effectively because as as we do oversight of the postal service.
▶ 1:14:02So, um, but but we've seen kind of it's there, you know, Amazon is a customer of the postal service and in in, uh, some areas, uh, where, uh, unanticipated deliveries have come into this system, it's c it's caused problems. We did some work in Minnesota uh, a year or so ago and found some problems there, but I I wouldn't be able to answer broadly on that. We talked briefly about the problems at the Kansas City Distribution Center.
▶ 1:14:30Part of the problem was the returns of Amazon which stacked up and is causing chaos in this huge distribution center and affecting people all over that region of Missouri. Exactly. Returns have been a problem.
▶ 1:14:43uh Amazon returns particularly in locations where they they consolidate the returns and Kansas City is in one one of those and we've seen problems related to both just the uh congestion and also the um challenges with employees uh potentially uh stealing from the returns that come in. I have 10 seconds left. Basically, I highly encourage the postal service to get its workforce straightened out, its hiring practices. I visited with a postmaster there in my district.
▶ 1:15:12Uh, this person was in tears because the hiring practices, it's done over the internet. They hire people, they come in for the job, it's not what they thought it was going to be, and they can't retain anyone. I think that's part of the issue with that. I yield back, sir. Thank you, sir. Um, since there seems to be some interest, we'll start a a second round here of questions, and I'll acknowledge myself yet again.
▶ 1:15:39Uh, if I'm not mistaken, the postal service when they deployed a 10-year strategic plan delivering for America plan projected significant overall savings for the postal service. In 2024, your office audited the delivery for America's financial pro projections. As you know, the plan projected positive net income for the postal service starting in FY 2023.
▶ 1:16:02Contrary to those projections, action results show net losses including $6 and a half billion dollars in 2023. Can you, General Hull, explain why why postal services financials deviating from the DFA's predictions and has the postal service updated its projection after uh reviewing your findings? And what can we expect in future years?
▶ 1:16:27Yeah, we uh that re in that report um the postal service um indicated to us that inflation had a significant impact on their financials and we looked at that and did find that inflation um had an an impact. But we also found that that uh work hour reductions which is what saves the money on the on the uh salaries and benefit side were not occurring uh as quickly as they had projected.
▶ 1:16:55And as a result, a lot of the savings that they had intended to to get out of the DFA were not being um experienced. Uh they they believe they might be delayed, but we saw that they had not yet been experienced. So um we did recommend as you said that the postal service um we said that the financials that they put together in fairness during the middle of a pandemic so they put together these financial projections. We said, you know, things have changed dramatically since that then.
▶ 1:17:24So we recommended that they update their financial projections so that so that uh Congress and others can be clear on when they expect to get into a better in a better financial place. Uh thus far the postal service has not released at least publicly um financial projections that um are into the future like they did with their first delivering for America plan.
▶ 1:17:47Wasn't it fair to say that it's a wild deviation from being in a profit to being a six point or $5 billion loss? Yes. And you you say most of that is failure to maintain the overtime I guess is what you're saying that the people working too much or they weren't curbing the No, some of it was inflation.
▶ 1:18:10Some of it was the uh the uh uh issues with them not being able to reduce their work hours as quickly as they as they had planned to. And then there's a segment of this that inflation has an impact on in that the postal service calls it um non-controllable or they call they have a controllable section and a non-controllable section. Basically in the non-controllable section it's mostly impacts on some of those large liabilities that I talked about earlier.
▶ 1:18:39the um the uh CSRS and the FURs retirement benefits as well as the workers comp programs, those are those are in what they call non-controllable because inflation and higher interest rates in those places has significant impacts on losses or gains depending on the financials basically. So, so they have a controllable and a non-controllable. It's complicated.
▶ 1:19:02the postal service financials are are are kind of difficult sometimes to decipher, but um but yes, they they clearly um were far from what they originally projected, which is why we we believe that it would be very beneficial to them to come out with additional new Do you think it would be beneficial to deviate from the original delivering for America plan to something that works?
▶ 1:19:28Uh I I think that obviously there have been many many issues in execution of that plan. So I think looking at the plan is not a bad thing to see if it if if there are needs to to change the direction. Recognize Mr. Hoyer for any questions he may have. Thank you very much, Mr. Um did they call you General Hall? You can call me whatever you would like. No, I can't do that and wouldn't do that.
▶ 1:19:57Uh any this hall can you tell me um how many pieces of mail are delivered daily by the United States Postal Service? It's in the It's in the millions and millions and millions. I don't have that number with me, but I can get it to you. Well, it's well into the hundreds of millions. Um and your job is to oversee in part the efficiency and effectiveness of the operations. Correct.
▶ 1:20:26What I'm interested in, and I've discussed this before with the postal service some time ago when like Bishop it was the Treasury Postal Committee and we did have jurisdiction over the service itself.
▶ 1:20:42Um, do you have any knowledge of whether efficiency visav hundreds of millions of pieces of mail being delivered on time at the right site to the person that was the addressee? Um, visav the mistakes and the slowness of delivery.
▶ 1:21:06In other words, have we gotten less efficient, more efficient, stayed the same? Is that part of your analysis that you do? Yeah, I I'm I'm not sure that we have done that analysis. We've tracked things like service over time, trending in service. Uh uh I think um one of the challenges the postal service faces is that mail volume, as significant as it is, has declined pretty significantly over time.
▶ 1:21:35And we have a paper that's coming out probably in the next month or so that talks about male declines over time and projections into the future of what that could look like because you have to think about that as you move forward and determine how to size your network and where you need staff and things like In many respects that's due to dig digital communications, right? Yeah.
▶ 1:22:00Um I'd like to get some sense and And by the way, I think our committee also has an interest in what you you say reporting to the oversight committee in terms of that because to some degree that impacts on our responsibilities as well and yours. Uh I want to go to doge that met with you.
▶ 1:22:23Was there at any time was there a discussion about any study that related to the complement of federal employees or postal employees that were needed to do the job that was expected of them. In other words, what I'm saying was there anything which Doge or you based your analysis on the proper level?
▶ 1:22:48I happen to believe the government needs to be rightsized and and whatever we ask them to do, they need the right number of people to do it and if we don't want to do it, we need to cut the number of employees. Uh but I have not heard of any studies on which Doge is relying to come to a level of employment particularly when you send two million people uh a notice that you can you can quit if you want we'll pay you for the next six months.
▶ 1:23:17Do you know of any such study and was any discussed? Uh I am not aware of any study and we did not discuss that when we met with them. Thank you Mr. Chairman. Thank you. now rep uh recognize the gentleoman from Iowa. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, for the second round. Um I want to move on to facilities um and and kind of some of the current concerns we have there.
▶ 1:23:42Um in December 2024, um then Postmaster General DeJoy claimed over 31,000 facilities were in shockingly horrible condition with over 20 billion in deferred maintenance. And so my biggest concern with this is um I am worried about not only the conditions for the workforce but also for executing their jobs effectively.
▶ 1:24:03So do you think that these deferred maintenance issues and the um frankly uh illequipped buildings are actually slowing down services for the American people? What we've seen as we go out and do our our work, I talked about that that when we go out and do local work where we do a plant and delivery units around, we see lots and lots of issues with deferred maintenance, lots of issues with ceilings falling down or broken things in the in the parking lot, uh potentially safety issues to some degree.
▶ 1:24:31So, we have launched a a job that we're in the middle of right now that looks at deferred maintenance more broadly across the postal service and we hope to issue that probably in three or four months. So, um, we'll know more when we look at it broadly. We just know kind of the individual situations that we've seen that are pretty pretty, uh, shocking in some places. Well, certainly we want to make sure we're reaching if those facilities are in my district. I I want to make sure we're getting on them to get those things fixed and that we're prioritizing safety.
▶ 1:25:00And, um, how are you uh, going through those investig You mentioned you're going to have a report out in a couple of months. How are you uh, going through that process to provide then hopefully recommendations to USPS? Yeah, we'll be looking. We're doing field visits. I think we've been to uh three pl I think we've been to Dallas, New York, and maybe Boston so far, but we're also incorporating what we see when we go out and do the local work into that job. But we're looking at the processes, right? The postal service should have processes for reporting when things are broken so that they can be fixed.
▶ 1:25:30This is this is not something that they haven't done for many years. They may have neglected it or they may not have put the money towards it, but it needs, you know, these things should have been reported and should have been fixed. We'll look at timeliness of addressing issues when they are reported. We'll look to see if there are issues that haven't been reported. Kind of the entire process to see and we'll make recommendations to improve uh in that area. Okay.
▶ 1:25:52Are there any recommendations you've already made to USPS that they have not implemented properly or um things that could significantly improve service along the way? Yeah. Uh on the deferred maintenance, I'm not aware of any that are still open. We when we go out and look at the individual plants and delivery units, we we will make recommendations locally to address the things.
▶ 1:26:12For example, if we if we see a broken toilet or a ceiling that's falling down or poor working conditions, things like that for employees or customers, we'll make recommendations to for uh fixes there. And generally, they handle those pretty quickly. But I mean, there are, you know, 30,000 or so places around the country we can't be in many of them. So, I would be interested if you do you have any uh district by district or maybe even state level data that you could share with me specifically for Iowa, but um I'd be interested in seeing those breakdowns.
▶ 1:26:42Definitely. Okay. Thank you. I yield Thank you. The chair now recognizes Mr. Edwards from North Carolina for his questions. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Uh, Miss Hull, I'll shift gears just a little bit, too. Uh, my district, uh, NC11 was hit on September 27th by Hurricane Helen. Probably the most devastated district across the southeast from that hurricane.
▶ 1:27:07We've got a number of post offices that were destroyed, uh, that are still inoperable. Uh, constituents are getting antsy. In many cases, folks have to drive up to an hour to get to closest post office. What what what can I take back home and give them some confidence that uh those post offices, those facilities are getting the attention from the folks up here in Washington DC that they deserve?
▶ 1:27:37And could you share any sort of process that you might have in prioritizing which facilities are looked at first? Yeah, that's a great great question. Um, I'll address your last question first and then get into kind of this the suspended post office situation. Um, uh, generally when we're going when we're deciding where to go and look, uh, in the those local, um, projects, we look mostly at at service level data.
▶ 1:28:06We we look at how that the community is being served in in um the service scores, whether there are um there are routes that are not being delivered, things like that. Um we haven't, I don't believe, incorporated um post office suspensions into that. That might be a good thing for us to incorporate. But to get to your to your question about um the post offices in North Carolina, that's something that I will take back and we'll see.
▶ 1:28:33We have done as I as I told um uh uh Congressman uh Mr. Leotaa that we have done work on post office suspensions in the past. I don't know how long it has been, but we'll go back and look to see if that's something that we should we should do again and if so, we'll incorporate the work there.
▶ 1:28:49We did go uh during the uh election process because u the hurricane came through right um I think in October se late September October we did go out and look to to see how uh the post offices in your district were handling that because there were some concerns about voting by mail and how that was going to be impacted. So, we did do some visits there in that in that election cycle, but but it's it's something that we could go back and revisit.
▶ 1:29:19I'd just say thank you. I'm I'm definitely going to have my staff follow back up with you. Uh but because we it was seven months ago that we were hit by this storm and we still got post offices that are not operable. Folks are getting impatient and they deserve the uh the the the service that they had before. So, thank you Thank you, Mr. Edwards. Now, recognize Mr. Alfred. You've done very well here. You got in. Now you're getting two lightning rounds in. And I know.
▶ 1:29:49I love it. Thank you. Appreciate that. I I love having the second round. We can dig a little bit deeper. And thank you, General Hall, for again. Uh I don't know if you covered this because I was in small business. Did you talk about the local transportation optimization in your testimony? We did speak a little bit about it. Can you delve into that?
▶ 1:30:07explain how this works and why when you did your audit in I think Virginia uh it showed an 86% of the zip codes affected by the LTO plan were in rural areas and that service performance went down significantly in the weeks following that. How was that affecting um uh my district in rural Missouri? Mhm. Yeah.
▶ 1:30:28We um when the postal service decided to do this, basically um what what it is what it is doing is it it used to go the postal service used to go out at the end of every day and pick up mail that had come into the post office during the day and then bring it back um in the evening at night to be run at the processing plant.
▶ 1:30:51um oftentimes um at least according to the postal service there wasn't a lot of mail there and and it was costing a good bit of money to do those those routes and so what they what they have decided to do is instead of doing that evening route to all of these post offices they would pick up that mail in the morning when they bring the mail to the carriers to be sorted and delivered.
▶ 1:31:16So instead of doing two or sometimes more than two uh stops a day at a post office, they're just going to do the one in the morning. So what that generally does in many of those locations is add at least a partial delivery day to some degree a full delivery day on uh on that mail.
▶ 1:31:34The postal service uh uh uh maintains that the LTO um that they did was a pilot project and they did it in I believe 15 locations around the country and then they filed a service standard change to add a day of delivery to the service standard for those locations that would cover that loss. Yes. Yes. Um it um how much money did that save in doing that?
▶ 1:32:01Uh well it's it's just rolled out I believe in in April or early April they I think they project that there will be sever several billion dollars of savings annually associated with that but so far it's it's it's just starting. So that's one thing that we will be looking at is whether or not they're actually those savings are being realized as part of this implementation process.
▶ 1:32:24But another thing that we'll be looking at is what the service implications of that of that are and whether or not the postal service is able to do this uh provide this service within the five days that they have projected that they will be able to meet. So it's a it's a big change in the postal network something that um that could have significant implications. For the my last two minutes I want to go back to the wor workforce issues.
▶ 1:32:51I think this is very important for the stability and long-term uh survivability of the postal Um what changes do you recommend we make in that uh I the hiring service the hiring process? Right. I I think that the postal service really needs to when they when they hire you can you can hire quickly but you can hire badly quickly and that's not helpful.
▶ 1:33:14So, I think making sure that when they do bring someone on board that it's someone that understands the nature of the job and is willing to to invest in that. Um, the postal service I think is um is a bit of a throwback organization. I I have a lot of passion for what they do and how they serve rural America, but it's a tough job. Many of these jobs are very physical and they're very labor intensive and you don't see a lot of jobs like that in America, at least to the scale the postal service has nowadays.
▶ 1:33:43And so making sure that people understand what they're getting themselves into when they when they do uh come into the postal service. But it's also a great career if if you know for especially for people that that may not want to um to get a college degree straight out of high school. There's a lot of opportunities that the postal service can offer to to people in that space.
▶ 1:34:06So I think when they're applying online and they come in and they accept the job and they don't know what the job is and then they quit when they find out how tough it is. Yes. Exactly. And so making sure that it's clear um uh talking to a supervisor before you show up on day one. You got to have a face tof face interview at some point before you ex and and having the supervisors be upfront about the job, what it entails, how much they're going to need to work.
▶ 1:34:32many of these uh incoming people have to work, you know, six days in a row every week or things like it's a tough job. And Mr. Chair, may I ask one more question? Thank you. Appreciate that. Look, I know the postal service is is provided for under the constitution. I don't think should ever be privatized.
▶ 1:34:53But are there things that you're looking at in the private sector processes that Amazon I mean you can get things at your doorstep like that UPS uh are you looking at these and trying to adopt the best practices so that we can have the best postal service in the I we're looking to see whether the postal service is doing those things exactly what what you're saying in our oversight efforts trying to make sure that
▶ 1:35:24the postal service is is looking outside it maybe inconsistently. I think in some places they are. I think in some places they they could do um a better job of looking at private sector best practices and implementing them within their organization because I get the feeling that they don't want to look at that and compare themselves with someone who might be doing a better job. But we each do that. I mean I look at uh ranking member Hoyer how I can be a better statesman.
▶ 1:35:54Um, we've got to look at uh our best practices, whether it's our prison system that we're involved in uh in appropriating uh whether it's how we function as a body here on Capitol Hill. But I applaud your efforts in your oversight and um we're behind you and we want to help. And with that, I yield back. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Can I just follow one question for more praise for yourself? I appreciate it.
▶ 1:36:23He and I became good friends on travel this last week and we hadn't known each other very well and I urge everybody in the Congress to travel with one another and leave the shores where we're sort of line up against one another and and go when we're American representing our country overseas. And it was a delightful effort to get to know Mr. down for better and look forward to working with him. And you, Mr. Chairman, of course.
▶ 1:36:52Uh, let me ask you something. Has there been an assessment of the postal services of the the international community? And if so, where do we rank? It depends on what the metric is. But yes, we've done we've done a some good research work in that space looking at where the postal service fits at at in the postal community, international postal community.
▶ 1:37:18And depending on what you're particularly interested in, we have lots of work in that space that we we would love to share. But it it is uh you know service is one thing, price is another thing. How you know there's lots of ways to look at the at the posts and how they compare against each other. Do you I understand all a lot of metrics.
▶ 1:37:41Has there been any assessment of where we stand uh generally speaking in the postal services of the every everybody has a postal service. Yeah. Again, again, we've done some we did uh we like for example, we did some work on looking at first class mail stamp prices and how the postal service compared and and actually found that the postal service is one of the least expensive posts around the world to um to mail uh a first class letter.
▶ 1:38:11Um we've also uh the the work that I spoke of earlier on the um priv privatization or the structure thing is the most recent work we've done in that space to look at how the postal service compares structurally, financially, what are the universal service obligations that are required for each of the posts. It's a very interesting paper and and gets into a lot of what you're talking about. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Hoyer.
▶ 1:38:42And with that, our hearing has concluded. I'd like to thank uh General Hall today for being here for her cander. And uh there may be some members who would like to submit questions. For the record, please submit any uh questions for the record to the subcommittee staff within the next seven days. We stand adjourned. Thank you. Great to see you.