Florida Postal Worker Charged With Stealing From Customers
A $9,000 Rolex watch among items stolen from customers
A Homosassa Post Office worker was arrested on Jan. 27 following complaints from several postal patrons their property had been stolen or was missing.
The arrest wrapped up the investigation of three separate incidents reported to the Citrus County Sheriff’s Office.
In one incident, a Sheriff’s Office detective received a complaint from a woman on Jan. 5 that gift cars she had mailed to Illinois had been stolen. The woman also said that she later discovered the gift cards had been used, one of which was at the Inverness Wal-Mart. The other card was also used, but it is unknown where it was redeemed, the arrest report says.
On Jan. 12, a couple reported that a $9,000 Rolex watch they had mailed from a jewelry store using a post office service from Homosassa never arrived at its destination. The couple also produced receipts showing the watch was sent out and the watch insured for $4,000.
During the investigation, the Sheriff’s Office was able to review a video of Riggeal placing items on a shelf next to her, then placing the packages in the trash can near her work station and then removing the packages from the trash.
full story: Citrus (Florida) Daily
OIG: What can the Postal Service do to reduce workers’ compensation costs?
The USPS Office Of Inspector General asked readers the following question:
What can the Postal Service do to reduce workers’ compensation costs?
In fiscal year 2009, the Postal Service workers’ compensation expense was approximately $2.2 billion, an 81 percent increase from $1.2 billion in FY 2008. These costs include $55 million in DOL administrative fees for FY 2009. About 72 percent ($718 million) was a non-cash charge related to changes in the estimated discount and inflation rates used to calculate the liability for future payments. At the end of FY 2009, the Postal Service estimated the total liability for future workers’ compensation cost was over $10 billion.
One of the contributing factors to the high cost of workers’ compensation payments is that FECA does not mandate a cut-off age for workers’ compensation benefits. Thus, injured workers can continue to receive workers’ compensation benefits well past the legal retirement age of 65, and in some cases employees over the age of 90 are still receiving workers’ compensation benefits.
Fraudulent workers’ compensation claims also result in higher overall costs. To combat workers’ compensation fraud the OIG launched its crime prevention and awareness campaign in September 2009 and a joint year-long initiative with the U.S. Postal Inspection Service in February 2010. The successful investigative efforts saved the Postal Service more than $400 million for fiscal years 2009 and 2010 combined.
Submit answers to poll at the USPS OIG blog
Related links:
USPS OIG, USPIS Launch Workers’ Comp Fraud Initative (January 18, 2010)
Senator Susan Collins Seeks Reforms To Federal Workers’ Comp Program (January 12, 2011)
Postal Service’s Flat Sequencing System won’t need breaks
The U.S. Postal Service’s new mail-sorting machine is about the size of 14 double-decker buses —- and it’s fast.
It can do the job of 26 humans working at full-bore. Unlike its fleshy counterparts, it will work nonstop 17-hour shifts and won’t ever get paper cuts or carpal tunnel syndrome.
It’s part of a $1.5 billion investment expected to shave hours off the processing time for millions of pieces of mail every day and save the financially ailing Postal Service billions of dollars. And it’s coming to San Diego County in May.
The machine is called the Flats Sequencing System. It sorts flats, a type of mail that includes magazines, advertisements, newspapers, manila envelopes and the like.
full story: North County (CA) Times
Rural post offices under threat
At post offices in Browns Valley, Smartsville, Dobbins and other small Yuba County burgs, residents stop in for their mail, and a chat.
Sometimes it’s with the clerk, sometimes it’s with neighbors. The topic can be the weather, where to get firewood, or general gossip.
But officials of the U.S. Postal Service, which continues to face financial woes and a mandate to cut costs, is mulling whether such post offices still make sense in a time when bills can be paid online and most people can’t recall when they last sent a letter.
Beginning in March, the Postal Service will begin closing 2,000 offices nationwide, and postal officials are reviewing up to 16,000 more operating at a deficit
full story: Marysville (CA) Appeal-Democrat
’60 Minutes’ To Feature Story On Closure Of Post Office In Mansfield, Ohio
’60 Minutes’ visits Mansfield post office – Show drawn to city to tell story of Lincoln branch’s closing
The Emmy-award winning show “60 Minutes” spent Thursday and Friday at sites throughout Richland County, including five Mansfield post offices and AngelWoods Hideaway Bed and Breakfast, in Lucas.
“We’re doing a story about the U.S. Postal Service, which is in the process of closing a couple thousand post offices,” producer Clem Taylor said. “We’re here in Mansfield looking at the Lincoln branch as an example of what’s going on across the country
“We’re doing this story because, in one way or another, everyone in America is affected by the operations of the postal service,” he said. “And, quite frankly, there really hasn’t been a lot of stories about it. The postal service is trying to find ways to cut costs, while trying to still deliver the mail to every address in the U.S.”
full story: Mansfield News Journal
PostalReporter.com received the following message from Darrell See, Local 903 APWU :
I would like to thank and apologize to the patrons that stopped by the Lincoln Branch of the USPS in Mansfield for a scheduled protest that was cancelled; at the last minute 60 Minutes changed their venue for filming. Thank you Mansfield News Journal and 60 Minutes for the exposure to the issue of reviewing 16,000 of the 32,000 offices in America for closure. One of the largest reasons for closure is reported to be a loss of income at the stations and branches. Mark Strong’s article in Federal Times explains that the station and branches will show a loss since they are credited with sales and processing only, not deliveries, Locally, when mail is generated, from south of butler to the shores of Lake Erie in Sandusky, it is processed and credited to Mansfield Processing, except for Saturday mail trucked to Cleveland Ohio. Then, most of the advertising mail would be credited in Akron Ohio and Pennsylvania where the receiving bulk mailing centers are located. Next, if not for a new $50 Billion requirement in excessive pre-funding of expected future retiree health benefits the USPS would have shown a $611 Million Dollar profit for this non-profit, service origination over the last four years according to the APWU. Please contact your local and national government representatives if you want to keep your local USPS.
NY Postman Charged With Stealing 7,000 Coupons And Selling Them On eBay
Citing pressure from an impending foreclosure, a Queens postal worker stole thousands of retail-store coupons before they were mailed out — and sold them at a discount on eBay, cops said yesterday. Thomas Tang, 38, of Baldwin, Long Island, allegedly pilfered more than 7,000 coupons from JCPenney, Kohl’s and Lowe’s and sold them in batches on the Internet auction site. Working out of the Corona branch, Tang told investigators that he netted roughly $35,000 from the sale of JCPenney coupons between October 2009 and January of this year.
full story: New York Post
USPS Puts Hold On Proposal To Expand Ability To Subcontract Rural Routes
The U.S. Postal Service has withdrawn a proposal that “would have expanded its ability to subcontract rural routes to contract delivery service,” according to an announcement this week by the National Rural Letters Carriers’ Association. The decision “came after extensive discussions” between the NRLCA and Postmaster General Patrick Donahoe, as well as other postal officials, according to the release on the union’s web site.
“We have tabled the issue while we are in the process of resolving a labor contract,” Postal Service spokesman Mark Saunders said via email, when asked for confirmation of the union’s claim.
full story: Federal Times
Parker, Florida Post Office Moving Letter Carriers To Another Facility
PARKER — Letter carriers will stop working out of the Parker Post Office location sometime in March, postal officials confirmed Thursday.
The president of the American Postal Workers Union 1414, Dee Carr, said the Parker facility, officially referred to as the Eastside Station, will lose its letter carriers to the Sherman Avenue location in March. He also claimed the postal service had been trying to keep the move quiet.
“They don’t want the public to be upset,” Carr said. “The only thing that will be left there is the retail.”
Joseph Breckenridge, a spokesman with the postal service, confirmed postal carriers will be moved to the Sherman Avenue facility. He said postal customers will be able to drop off mail, buy stamps and other mailing items at the Parker facility, but added there has been no decision to close the Parker facility and moving postal carriers would not disrupt delivery of the mail. He denied there was an attempt to keep the transfer quiet.
Full Story: News Herald
Congressman Rahall Calls On PRC To Review USPS’s Process For Consolidating Mail Services
Filed under: consolidations, postal, postal news, press releases, usps
WASHINGTON, D.C. – U.S. Rep. Nick Rahall (D-W.Va.) today appealed to the U.S. Postal Regulatory Commission to review the Postal Service’s process for consolidating and suspending mail services in southern West Virginia.
“The people of southern West Virginia deserve regular and effective mail services like everyone else,” Rahall wrote in letters to the Commission. “I urge the Postal Review Commission to review the Postal Service’s compliance with applicable laws in its closure and consolidation processes, and to provide recommendations to the Congress to ensure fairness and equity for the people of rural communities.”
The Commission is an independent agency that exercises oversight of the Postal Service, and is conducting a review of postal operations. In his letters to the Commission, Rahall cited the suspension of services at the Hacker Valley Post Office, and the consolidation of mail processing operations from the Beckley and Huntington Processing and Distribution Facilities to the Charleston Processing and Distribution Center.
“The law requires the USPS to ‘provide a maximum degree of effective and regular postal services to rural areas, communities, and small towns where post offices are not self-sustaining’ – in other words, whether you live in the great metropolitan cities, or in a small rural community in southern West Virginia, the law guarantees reliable and effective mail services for everybody. The Postal Service must not forget that,” wrote Rahall. Read more
Forget the dog! Mailman faces angry Turkey
In Cape Cod, Mass., a local fowl’s feathers are clearly ruffled by the postman. TODAY’s Natalie Morales takes a look at the hilarious video
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