usps

Oral contracts do exist, and the U.S. Postal Service cannot force you to sign a contract with different terms than previously agreed upon. That’s the take-way from a recent decision issued by the Postal Service Board of Contract Appeals (PSBCA) in a case called Sharon Roedel, PSBCA No. 6347, 6348, April 10, 2012.  The PSBCA found that the Postal Service breached an oral contract it had with Roedel, and that USPS owed her the profits and wages she would have earned under the six-month emergency contract.

New mandates on how evaluation criteria must be stated in Postal Service solicitations are required by the recently revised USPS Supplying Principles and Practices (SPP) manual. The SPP revisions were issued on December 12, 2011. The full text of the new SPP is available by clicking here. In addition to these changes, the Postal Service has introduced a new “Simplified Purchasing” method. Simplified Purchasing will be more streamlined than the traditional method, will commonly use oral solicitations, and may be used on procurements valued at up to $1 million. 

Procurement spending by the U.S. Postal Service declined slightly in 2011, but capital spending was anemic, according to the agency’s recently released Form 10-K report. Capital expenditures experienced a 15% drop from 2010 levels. This comes on top of a 24% decline in capital spending a year ago.  Transportation spending was once again the leading procurement category, totaling $6,389 million — an increase of $511 million, or 8.7%, compared to 2010.  More expensive fuel accounted for much of this increase, as diesel fuel prices rose 26.6% from a year ago.

The USPS Office of Inspector General (OIG) recently announced that it will be auditing the Postal Service’s Suspension and Debarment program. Debarments most frequently result from a criminal conviction of a company, or its employees. But a contractor can be debarred for any type of improper conduct that negatively reflects on its honesty, ethics, or competence. Resulting debarments have government-wide impact. The thrust of the audit appears to be whether USPS is debarring enough contractors. Read on for more details about OIG’s upcoming audit.

Contractors beware: the U.S. Postal Service Office of Inspector General (OIG) thinks that $1 out of every $20 spent by USPS on its contractors is fraudulent, and OIG is itching to find it. According to a July 18, 2011 OIG blog article, “conservative business estimates project up to 5 percent of contracted dollars are lost to fraud, meaning $1.45 billion of Postal Service funds are potentially at risk.” While these numbers are fanciful, there is no doubt that the OIG is taking this seriously. Read on for more details.

Sounds crazy, but with a bit of accounting help from Congress, the U.S. Postal Service could go from pauper to prosperous faster than an Express Mail package. Even though the Postal Service is $13 billion in debt, has stopped making certain payments into the federal retirement system, and is projected to become insolvent and lose another $8 billion this year, it could happen. Because over the last 40 years, USPS has overpaid between $50 and $70 billion into the U.S. Treasury, or so says the agency and its independent regulators. Several bills are pending in Congress that could release these funds to the agency. Read on for the details.