Copyright 2000 Federal News Service, Inc.
Federal News Service
July 25, 2000, Tuesday
SECTION: PREPARED TESTIMONY
LENGTH: 3228 words
HEADLINE:
PREPARED TESTIMONY OF GARY L. EAGER AGENCY PRESIDENT FOR THE U.S. POSTAL
INSPECTION SERVICE FEDERAL LAW ENFORCEMENT OFFICERS ASSOCIATION
BEFORE THE HOUSE COMMITTEE ON GOVERNMENT REFORM
POSTAL SERVICE SUBCOMMITTEE
SUBJECT - "THE U.S.
POSTAL SERVICE AND THE POSTAL INSPECTION
SERVICE: MARKET COMPETITION AND LAW ENFORCEMENT CONFLICT?"
BODY:
Mr. Chairman and Members of the
Subcommittee:
Mr. Chairman, distinguished members of the Subcommittee,
ladies and gentlemen, my name is Gary Eager. I am a member of the National
Executive Board of the Federal Law Enforcement Officers Association (FLEOA),
which is a voluntary non-partisan professional association representing
exclusively the interests of more than 18,000 members who are federal law
enforcement officers, and special agents from more than fifty agencies in the
Federal Government. We are the largest such organization in the world
representing Federal law enforcement. There are 1030 Postal Inspectors belonging
to FLEOA which comprises 50% of our workforce. Broken down further,
approximately 60 % of the Postal Inspectors assigned to field offices belong to
FLEOA. I serve FLEOA as the Agency President for the U.S. Postal Inspection
Service, elected by my fellow FLEOA Postal Inspector members and have served in
this capacity for the past 4 years. I also serve as the National Chapters
Director for FLEOA. I am a U.S. Postal Inspector working as a supervisor
assigned to the Southeast Division, Atlanta, GA. I have been a Postal Inspector
for more than 22 years primarily working street crimes such as armed robberies
of post offices having been assigned to offices in Chicago, IL, Gary, IN,
Cincinnati, OH, and Memphis, TN. Prior to becoming a Postal Inspector, I was
employed as a police officer for the St. Louis, MO, Metropolitan Police
Department. All in all have more than 27 years experience in law enforcement. I
am also proud to say I am a Viet Nam veteran.
Seated with me is Richard
Gallo, National President of the Federal Law Enforcement Officers Association.
Mr. Gallo is here to show solidarity and our association's total support for our
FLEOA Postal Inspectors.
FLEOA appreciates the opportunity to appear
before you today to provide testimony on the feasibility of having the U.S.
Postal Inspection Service, a federal law enforcement agency, separated from the
U.S. Postal Service. FLEOA believes any discussion of this nature must include
not only an overview of the current direction of the Inspection Service, but
should weigh the Postal Service's move toward
reform and/or privatization.
FLEOA's overriding concern
is the issue of privacy and sanctity of America's communications and the future
role of the Inspection Service.
Distinguished members of this
Subcommittee, FLEOA respectfully asserts that the Inspection Service appears to
be having difficulty obtaining the necessary fiscal and personnel resources to
fulfill its public service obligations. Although well intentioned, it appears
that the Inspection Service is continually presenting a "value added" approach
to Postal Service management in an effort to gain recognition on what we mean to
the overall performance of the organization.
Second, we are concerned
about the perception from the private sector that the Postal Service has an
unfair advantage over its competitors by having a federal law enforcement agency
attached to it.
Last fall, Ken Weaver was appointed as our new Chief
Postal Inspector. We believe he is a capable leader and has the utmost
integrity, but we are concerned that he will not be afforded the latitude to get
our Agency back on track. I want to make it clear, we are not speaking on the
Chief's behalf nor have we collaborated with any of his direct reports in
bringing these issues forward.
The U.S. Postal Inspection Service, one
of America's oldest law enforcement agencies, can trace its roots to Benjamin
Franklin. We have a proud history of service to the American public and to the
Postal Service. The men and women of the Inspection Service rank among the
finest in the federal, state and local law enforcement communities.
As a
federal law enforcement agency we enforce over 200 federal laws relating to the
fraudulent use of the postal system and U.S. Mail The protection of the Postal
Service and its nearly 800,000 employees are also core responsibilities of the
Inspection Service. In addition, the Inspection Service has traditionally been a
leader in areas of security and crime prevention.
In 1970 the Postal
Reorganization Act was passed by Congress which changed the Postal Service by
defining it as an independent establishment of the executive branch of the
Government of the United States. The purpose of the act was to in?rove the
efficiency and the performance of the Postal Service in a growing competitive
business environment.
Since the Postal Reorganization Act the
competition and technological advances have far surpassed what we believe was
envisioned in 1970. The rise of major corporations and the advances in
electronic communication via the Internet has and will continue to change the
Postal Service. Accordingly, the Postal Service, like any business, is having to
adjust to the changing business environment by prioritizing those program areas
that keep the organization fiscally sound and cutting those Departments viewed
as overhead.The U.S. Postal Inspection Service's role in the past has been the
protection of postal employees and the mail; enforcing postal laws; personnel
and plant security; conducting internal audits; and conducting criminal
investigations. This traditional role abruptly changed in 1996 when the Office
of Inspector General for the U.S. Postal Service was created. The Inspection
Service's loss of their Inspector General jurisdiction for the Postal Service
changed the Inspection Service's priorities to criminal investigations
supporting the concept of sanctity of the mail, security and crime prevention.
The Inspection Service's loss of their Inspector General responsibility
was primarily a result of a working relationship and a chain of command that was
not providing the necessary oversight for the Postal Service as required and
expected. The managers of the Inspection Service and those of the U.S. Postal
Service were both aligned under the Postal Career Executive Service which
promoted the perception that the U.S. Postal Service was being provided
oversight by its own managers which in many instances proved to be true. The
lack of independence by an objective Inspector General did not provide the
mechanism needed for organizational accountability.
Prior to the new OIG
being established, the Inspection Service's priorities were consistent with the
business needs of the Postal Service often -- times at the detriment of their
public service obligations. The commitment to the criminal programs was
adversely impacted by the necessity of the Inspection Service to prioritize its
audit and revenue protection programs. The personnel resources allocated to the
various programs reflected this commitment to prioritize those program areas
deemed most important to the Postal Service, specifically those programs tied
closely to its revenue. It appeared and many of us believe that the Postal
Service placed greater value on our audit and revenue protection programs than
they did on some of our criminal programs.
This emphasis even became
more pronounced from 1992 through 1999.
After the OIG was established,
the process of transferring responsibilities began which resulted in the loss of
Postal Inspector positions despite the fact that no level of service review was
conducted to establish a base line for Inspector positions. Crime rates,
population studies, facility size, volume of mail, etc., which would normally be
considered were not analyzed to determine if the Inspection Service could
perform at the proper level of service to meet its public service obligations.
The last level of service review was conducted in 1994, and was only selectively
applied. Even this level of service review was flawed, i.e., it addressed the
re- allocation of resources from an existing complement. The baseline for
Inspector positions is and has been a business decision as opposed to a law
enforcement decision based on the needs of the organization. We feel that if a
proper level of service review had been conducted in 1996, it would have
disclosed the Inspection Service was understaffed.
For more than 20
years the Inspection Service has not been allocated a significant increase, in
personnel resources despite the increase in demands for its public service
commitment. In 1975 there were approximately 1700 Postal Inspectors compared to
an authorized complement of approximately 1900 in the year 2000. The Postal
Service, on the other hand, experienced a significant growth in both employees
and the volume of mail it handled. Inspection Service management continued
throughout the years to prioritize and reprioritize programs and relied on a
professional workforce that could do more with less. During this time frame,
other federal law enforcement agencies increased in both allocation of personnel
and fiscal resources consistent with their public obligations. The Inspection
Service's growth did not parallel that of the Postal Service or that of other
federal law enforcement agencies consistent with their public service demands.
The only thing that can be said about our complement is that it is simply a
historical number.
Naturally, all local, state, and federal agencies
suffer from time to time with resource needs, but they do in fact put forth an
effort to identify what is reasonable and affordable and direct their efforts
toward providing the best service possible. The FBI, Secret Service, DEA, and
other federal law enforcement agencies have grown significantly over the past 20
years and clearly do not operate within a closed personnel resource budget. We
submit our Government does not consider these agencies overhead. Most of all,
they conduct some form of program management to evaluate and measure how well
they are doing. For all practical purposes the Inspection Service quit program
management in 1993, but did manage to re-allocate as many resources as possible
to their revenue protection and audit programs at the detriment of many criminal
programs such as mail theft, prohibited mailings, and mail fraud.
In the
1999 Annual Report of Investigations of the United States Postal Inspection
Service, our management system shows we are to align our activities with the
Postal Service management system called "Customer Perfect." The Inspection
Service aligns its' goals with three main categories of the Postal Service: "the
Voice of the Customer, the Voice of the Employee and the Voice of Business." I
could go into great detail concerning establishing goals which are allegedly
tied to the voices, but it would be merely rhetorical. The voices do nothing to
address our resource needs. As previously stated, we simply re-allocate. Even
given our displeasure with this concept being applied to a law enforcement
organization, I submit FLEOA is simply acting as a Voice of the Employee.
In December of 1997, the Inspection Service budget and other issues
prompted FLEOA to conduct a survey among its Postal Inspector membership to get
their input as to what they felt was the status of the Postal Inspection
Service. Sixty-one per cent (61%) of the membership felt the public was not
getting the proper level of service; seventy-five per cent (75%) indicated there
was not enough personnel resources assigned to the criminal programs;
seventy-four per cent (74%) indicated the workload was not fairly distributed;
and seventy-six (76%) indicated that our position among the federal law enforce
t community had weakened. Even though our survey accounted for only 25% of the
work , force, we considered the responses to be disturbing. The results were
provided to former Chief Postal Inspector Kenneth Hunter.
The partial
results of the survey as identified above were also conveyed to Mr. Einar
Dyhrkopp, Chairman of the Board of Governors, U.S. Postal Service, in a letter
dated March 31, 1999. The letter expressed our concern that the monetary budget
for the Inspection Service was being greatly reduced due to money being diverted
to the Office of Inspector General Mr. Dyhrkopp was also advised that the
Inspection Service had no personnel budget based on analysis of workload,
demographics, crime trends, etc. Mr. Thomas Koerher, Secretary to the Board of
Governors, responded on behalf of Mr. Dyhrkopp by stating that many of the
issues raised in our letter could be more appropriately handled by management or
the Chief Postal Inspector. He also assured FLEOA that "Management has assured
the Governors that there is no corresponding decrease in the Inspection Service
budget to accommodate funding for the OIG." This response was simply not
accurate.
A victim of re-allocating resources has been our Mail Fraud
Program where other federal law enforcement agencies are expending many more
work hours than the Inspection Service to combat the fraudulent use of the mail
The Inspection Service has reduced their allocation of work hours in this
program by 25% since 1992. This is not consistent with the level of service
required to meet public demands. Despite this situation, the Inspection Service
has achieved remarkable results with limited resources. We want to emphasize
that other agencies should work mail fraud, but that should not diminish the
Inspection Service's primary responsibility in this program area. Perhaps a
greater commitment by the Inspection Service would probably allow the other
agencies to divert their resources in areas of their primary jurisdictions. I
can assure you that a greater commitment by us in the Mail Fraud Program would
please every U.S. Attorney's office in the country.
Another example is
the refusal of the Postal Service to provide adequate pay for our lab personnel
The issue of establishing a pay scale comparable to other federal law
enforcement agencies for our lab personnel goes back as far as 1995. It is my
understanding the OIG recently submitted a report recommending the pay
adjustments; however, the Postal Service denied the pay comparison without
considering the OIG report. As you can imagine, our crime labs are an integral
part and form the very foundation for our investigative successes. Denying pay
comparability is not only a bad law enforcement decision, but it is a bad
business decision. We are losing personnel and I doubt if they will or can be
replaced since people with those skills are hard to find especially since they
can get better pay with other agencies. The impact of this decision will not
only have an adverse impact on our investigations, but will hamper our liaison
with prosecutors and other law enforcement agencies. Prosecutors do not care
about our internal problems; they just want lab results from our investigations
in a timely manner.
On June 26, 2000, the Inspection Service once again
announced a reduction in complement consistent with the Postal Service being
faced with the need to reduce the overall comply. These reductions are to take
place at the end of fiscal year 2001. This will include 23 Inspector positions
in addition to 72 investigative analyst positions which were just recently
approved. This reduction is in addition to the targeted reduction of 125 Postal
Inspector positions as a result of the audit function being reassigned to the
Inspector General Again; this is being done without a level of service review or
any consideration that the Inspection Service was severely understaffed prior to
1996. In addition, this reduction clearly points out that our resources are in
fact being reduced to staff the OIG without any supporting study or
justification other than the traditional method of re-allocating resources.
When reviewing my testimony, consider that the Postal Service has an
annual budget of 64 billion dollars and the allocation to the Inspection Service
is only 3/4 of one percent. Included in this budget are the 1400 Postal Police
Officers who provide security at our major facilities. And of course, the cost
of our lab personnel in the overall picture speaks for itself. Simply put, it
appears the Postal Service is acting like a business by cutting costs from those
areas considered overhead. I submit the Inspection Service is not overhead nor
are we a corporate security entity. We are a federal law enforcement agency with
a public service mandate and should be accorded the tools to carry on our
mission based on sound, reasonable public service considerations.
As it
stands now, the future of the Inspection Service is naturally tied to the fiscal
viability of the U.S. Postal Service in addition to the value placed on its
public service obligations. The need for the Inspection Service remains the same
as it did at the very beginning of our Nation, however, the value placed on it
by its parent organization is becoming a questionable factor when evaluating
whether or not the American people and the Postal Service are getting the
protection to which they are entitled.
As I previously mentioned, we are
concerned about the ongoing perception by some that having a law enforcement
agency tied to the Postal Service is an unfair business advantage. This concern
is being heightened now that the Postal Service is moving into the area of e-
commerce and some competitors might think that our law enforcement activities
could be used as a marketing tool What these competitors see as unfair
competition is viewed by FLEOA as crime prevention. However, we feel our members
being law enforcement officers are very sensitive to any such allegations. The
reality is that the Inspection Service is the only major federal law enforcement
agency tied to a quasi-government/quasi-business agency. This relationship
creates problems and/or perceptions that other federal law enforcement agencies
do not experience. We are facing budget cuts; it appears to many of us that we
are viewed as overhead; our lab and program management is and has deteriorated;
we need a level of service review; our allocation of resources is questionable;
and last, we are uncertain of the future.
Should consideration be given
to placing us under the executive branch of government with other federal law
enforcement agencies? FLEOA recommends that this issue be debated to ensure the
Inspection Service remains the primary agency to conduct investigations of
violations of the sanctity and fraudulent use of communications as intended by
our forefathers. In the event the reform of the Postal Service
continues to move toward privatization; FLEOA believes at some point the
Inspections Service will have to move to the executive branch of government to
survive as a federal law enforcement agency. This would be practical and good
public policy. Consistent with this move should require legislation to include
all carriers in the postal system Sanctity and privacy of
communications should not be the victim of privatization or
reform. FLEOA believes the ultimate outcome of the debate will
rest with the Congress and Postal Service's attitude toward our
public service obligations and the forces of competition. The Inspection Service
was meant to be a part of the government and our existence supports and enforces
every citizens fight to have security for their communication.
This
concludes FLEOA's statement. FLEOA and I wish to thank the Subcommittee for its
work on this topic. I stand ready to answer any questions the Subcommittee may
have.
END
LOAD-DATE: July 27, 2000
