Mail Management

Improved Social Security Mail Management Could Reduce Postage Costs Gao ID: GGD-91-34 February 13, 1991

Pursuant to a congressional request, GAO reviewed the effectiveness of the Social Security Administration's (SSA) mail management program.

GAO found that: (1) SSA initiated such mail cost reduction measures as presorting its beneficiary checks and some computer-generated mailings through the Department of the Treasury's Financial Management Service, private printing contractors, and presorting services; (2) such measures reduced SSA postage costs by almost $16 million, or about 15 percent of the first-class mail costs for selected programs, in fiscal year (FY) 1989; (3) SSA did not take advantage of other cost reduction opportunities that could have resulted in additional postage discounts amounting to $5.3 million; (4) missed opportunities included using a nine-digit zone improvement program (ZIP) code (ZIP+4) on first-class computer-generated mail, presorting first-class computer-generated mail from large volume mailing locations, and printing a barcode on outgoing mail where applicable; (5) SSA overstatement of anticipated postage costs resulted in overpayments to the U.S. Postal Service (USPS); and (6) SSA did not have a sound multiyear mail management plan for making management improvements.

Recommendations

Our recommendations from this work are listed below with a Contact for more information. Status will change from "In process" to "Open," "Closed - implemented," or "Closed - not implemented" based on our follow up work.

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