Managing Postal Facilities

With about 34,000 owned and leased facilities, the U.S. Postal Service is the third-largest landholding entity in the federal government. Most of its facilities provide mail processing or retail services. This expansive network is costly to operate and poses significant property management challenges. Changes in mail volumes, increasing employee compensation and benefits costs, a more competitive marketplace, and legislative reforms enacted in December 2006 have necessitated that the Postal Service increase its efficiency and cut costs.

With regards to its mail processing network, GAO found that the U.S. Postal Service has estimated total savings of $117 million for Air Mail Center closures but provided no such figure for the planned Area Mail Processing center consolidations.  Without measurable performance targets for achieving its realignment goals, the Postal Service remains unable to demonstrate to Congress and other stakeholders the costs and benefits associated with its network realignment initiatives.

GAO also found that some counties have far more postal retail facilities than other counties of comparable population, land area, and degree of urbanization and that some postal facilities appeared to merit consideration for closure based on their importance, utilization, condition, or costs.  However, the Postal Service is no longer pursuing its goal of reducing costs by closing redundant, low-value facilities due to the legal and political restrictions.  A recent Postal Service report estimated that it could save up to $1.4 billion per year by closing the smallest post offices, but it did not indicate how many of those facilities were redundant and low value.

The Postal Service actions needed to implement GAO’s recommendations include:

• Establish measurable performance targets for achieving its mail processing realignment goals.


• Institute a proactive, criteria-based approach to assist in identifying unneeded retail facilities for possible closure.

^ Back to topKey Reports

U.S. Postal Service: USPS Has Taken Steps to Strengthen Network Realignment Planning and Accountability and Improve Communication

GAO-08-1022T, July 24, 2008

Summary (HTML)   Highlights Page (PDF)   Full Report (PDF, 22 pages)   Accessible Text

U.S. Postal Service Facilities: Improvements in Data Would Strengthen Maintenance and Alignment of Access to Retail Services

GAO-08-41, December 10, 2007

Summary (HTML)   Highlights Page (PDF)   Full Report (PDF, 66 pages)   Accessible Text   Recommendations (HTML)

U.S. Postal Service: Mail Processing Realignment Efforts Under Way Need Better Integration and Explanation

GAO-07-717, June 21, 2007

Summary (HTML)   Highlights Page (PDF)   Full Report (PDF, 69 pages)   Accessible Text   Recommendations (HTML)