Fiscal Year 2017 Decision Analysis Report Summary
The OIG reviews decision analysis reports (DARs) in advance of Investment Review Committee (IRC) meetings to determine whether the requested investments are reasonable business decisions and are in the best interest of the U.S. Postal Service.
In FY 2017, the OIG evaluated 64 DARs totaling $2.90 billion that required the Postal Service Headquarters Finance team’s validation and subsequent IRC approval or disapproval. We provided our individual reviews to DAR sponsors and the IRC considered these reviews during its approval process. Six of the 64 investment requests that we reviewed (totaling $1.42 billion) were subsequently canceled prior to receiving the Postmaster General’s approval.
We determined that all DARs reviewed in FY 2017 were reasonable business decisions or in the best interest of the Postal Service; however, we identified concerns for eight DARs that totaled $218.8 million. We had concerns related to the proposed ROIs for five of these eight DARs, including overly optimistic savings projections, nonrealistic achievable results, dependencies on various cost reduction goals and factors, and overstating the ROI without the associated revenue metrics.