The debacle continues at the U.S. Postal Service.
Paid overtime costs for fiscal 2012 amounted to $3.53 billion, up almost 7 percent from 2011, the IG found. At one Des Moines, Iowa, distribution center, overtime pay for seven mail handlers ranged from $65,000 to $76,000 each, more than doubling their respective salaries, according to the audit. Although overtime hours are not supposed to account for more than 5 percent of total workhours under a USPS management target, they added up to 7.8 percent last year, the audit said. After falling sharply in 2009, the proportion of overtime hours has risen every year since.
Time to turn over daily mail delivery to the private sector under a competitive bidding process.
