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To: pass pass who wrote (29852)	1/10/1998 2:57:00 PM
From: Glenn D. Rudolph	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 61433

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.