The Postal Service has released its annual Report to Congress, which includes a Comprehensive Statement of Operations for fiscal year (FY) 2023 as well as the FY 2024 Performance Plan. In an introduction to the report, Postmaster General Louis DeJoy and Chairman of the Board of Governors Roman Martinez discussed the intent of the March 2021 Delivering for America plan to address shifts in mail and package use and set a blueprint for the future based on operational precision, workforce development, world-class performance, and financial sustainability as a largely self-sustaining organization. They said the Postal Service has taken major steps to refurbish facilities and design a new operational model that will help it better manage an integrated flow of mail and packages, including installation of more than 300 new sorting machines, increasing daily package processing capacity to 70 million; ongoing reductions in the USPS carbon footprint; and anticipated deployment of more than 106,000 new vehicles to modernize the aging fleet between now and 2028 — including at least 66,000 battery electric vehicles. They also touted introduction of a new, streamlined shipping option, USPS Ground Advantage, which, they said, provides customers with a simple, reliable, and more affordable way to ship packages, and continuing efforts to convert more than 155,000 precareer employees to career status, helping to stabilize our workforce.
The report gave considerable space to a discussion of mail security and safety, noting that the United States Postal Service Inspection Service conducted over 1,500 mail theft prevention activities and almost 900 violent crime prevention activities in the past fiscal year. Since the expansion of Project Safe Delivery, postal inspectors have made 472 mail theft and 88 robbery arrests. In addition, over 2.6 million individual counterfeit stamps were seized.
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