Postal employees suspended for cheatingJanuary 10, 1998Web posted at:
1:34 p.m. EST (1834 GMT) WASHINGTON (AP) -- The U.S. Postal Service has
suspended 11 supervisors in the first suspected case of widespread
cheating on the agency's system of measuring on-time arrival of
first-class mail, The Washington Post reported on Saturday. The scheme
by postal employees in West Virginia was intended to show Washington
postal officials that the state had one of the fastest mail systems in
the nation. Since 1990, the Postal Service has used the Price Waterhouse
accounting firm to index for how well it delivers the mail. Every week,
Price Waterhouse sends mail to selected households to determine how
quickly it is delivered by individual post offices. After the test
letters are delivered, Price Waterhouse computes the effectiveness of
postal operations based on the percentage that arrived overnight. In
West Virginia, postal employees obtained information on where the test
letters were being sent and organized a system to get them there faster.
They hired temporary workers, who picked out the test letters from bags
of incoming mail. The cheating, which went on for several months, was
exposed when an individual who was supposed to drop off the test letters
at several locations took them all to one post office, where the window
clerk recognized them as test mail and alerted a supervisor, the Post
said. The postal employees used the agency's internal e-mail system to
alert post offices around the state of the addresses of all but 15 of
the 100 recipients of test letters, the Post said. They devised special
mail delivery plans to ensure that the test letters arrived promptly.
West Virginia already had one of the nation's best overnight delivery
rates before the scheme began, according to Postal Service records. The
most senior suspended official, Appalachian District Manager Diarmuid
Dunne, did not take part in the scheme but was placed on administrative
leave with pay because he did not act swiftly to discipline those who
did, the Post quoted officials as saying. Among other supervisors
suspended was Charleston Postmaster Rick Esslinger. Copyright 1998 ÿThe
Associated Press. All rights reserved. |
