PRC Strategic Objectives: Year One of Five-Year Plan
Background
The Postal Regulatory Commission (PRC) is an independent establishment of the executive branch that exercises regulatory oversight of the U.S. Postal Service. In December 2022, the PRC released its strategic plan for 2023-2028. With the assistance of a contractor, the PRC’s plan has four goals, with corresponding objectives and performance indicators. The strategic plan is designed to be applicable, relevant, and impactful across a variety of potential future scenarios.
What We Did
The objective of our audit was to evaluate the processes used to develop and achieve the strategic plan’s goals, objectives, and performance indicators, as well as measure the first year’s implementation. We reviewed the PRC’s planning and implementation processes for its strategic plan between January 1 and December 31, 2023.
What We Found
We identified opportunities for the PRC to improve its overall project management processes, and its use of recommendations from the contractor it hired to help implement the strategic plan. Specifically, the PRC could improve its initiating and planning, budgeting, and scheduling for the overall strategic plan and individual projects within the plan.
This occurred because the PRC management did not create and communicate consistent expectations for how projects — or the plan — would be managed. PRC management stated the budgeting process had not been tied to strategic planning but acknowledged it should be. In addition, there was a lack of oversight to ensure documentation between the PRC and the contractor about project schedules matched, which caused reported progress to be misaligned.
Recommendations and Management Comments
We made three recommendations to address the management of the strategic plan and its projects. The PRC agreed with one recommendation and partially agreed with two. Management’s comments and our evaluation are at the end of the finding and recommendations. The U.S. Postal Service Office of Inspector General considers management’s comments responsive to recommendations 1 and 3, and corrective actions should resolve the issues identified in the report. For recommendation 2, we consider management’s comments partially responsive, and we plan to further evaluate the plan’s budget in the future.