P.S. Docket No. DCA 02-486
January 24, 2003
In the Matter of the Petition by
RONNIE PAUL
4038 Wickham Ave.
at
Bronx, NY 10466-2233
P.S. Docket No. DCA 02-486
APPEARANCE FOR PETITIONER:
William Brown
12 Mount Run
Tinton Falls, NJ 07753-7674
APPEARANCE FOR RESPONDENT:
James Wolahan
Labor Relations Specialist
United States Postal Service
James A. Farley Building, Room 3505
New York, NY 10199-9401
FINAL DECISION UNDER THE DEBT COLLECTION ACT OF 1982
Petitioner, Ronnie Paul, filed a timely Petition for Hearing after receiving a Notice of Involuntary Administrative Salary Offsets dated October 24, 2002. This Notice stated the Postal Service's intention to withhold $17,702.73 from Petitioner's salary to recover a shortage in an account for which Petitioner was responsible.
A hearing was held in New York City on December 10, 2002.[1] The Postal Service presented testimony from Anthony Kienle, Petitioner’s former supervisor, and Jeannine Lewis-Jackson, Petitioner’s current supervisor. Petitioner testified in his own behalf and both parties relied on documents filed with the Petition and the Postal Service Answer. Petitioner submitted one additional document at the hearing. The following findings of fact are based on the entire record.
FINDINGS OF FACT
1. At the time pertinent to this case, Anthony Kienle was the manager of several small post offices in the Bronx known as detached finance units. As such, he was also the custodian of the unit reserve stock for some of those offices, as well as for the Bronx General Post Office (GPO). (Tr. 7, 35, 41). [2]
2. Since 1999, Petitioner has been the customer services supervisor at the Bronx GPO. On August 24, 2001, Mr. Kienle turned over the unit reserve account at the Bronx GPO to Petitioner. They accomplished this by counting all the stamp stock and recording their count on a PS Form 3294, Cash and Stamp Stock Count and Summary. Petitioner observed while Mr. Kienle conducted the count and both signed the Form 3294, indicating agreement with the accuracy of the count. The account was in balance with the amount that inventory records showed should be present. (Tr. 7-9, 14, 20, 62; PS Exs. 3-3E).
3. The vault in which the Bronx GPO unit reserve was stored includes two sections, separated by a cage with a locked door. The outer section stored stamp stock assigned to individual window clerks. The inner section, which is not accessible to the clerks, houses the unit reserve. At the time Mr. Kienle turned over the unit reserve to Petitioner, this inner section of the vault also contained some stamp stock that belonged to two of the other finance stations that Mr. Kienle managed. That stock was not part of Petitioner’s account and he was not responsible for it. (Tr. 15, 23-24, 34, 42, 66).
4. Mr. Kienle conducted subsequent counts of the Bronx GPO unit reserve on September 12, 2001, and November 10, 2001. On both occasions the account was in balance with the amount that inventory records showed should be present. On each occasion, Mr. Kienle and Petitioner signed a PS Form 3294, attesting to the accuracy of the count. (Tr. 12-13, 29-30, 35, 74-75; PS Exs. 4-4C and 5-5E).
5. On August 19, 2002, Petitioner’s new supervisor, Ms. Lewis-Jackson, conducted an annual audit of the Bronx GPO unit reserve and found it to be short $17,702.73. Petitioner participated with Ms. Jackson in counting the stamp stock and signed a PS Form 3294 indicating that he agreed with the accuracy of the count. (Tr. 56-58; PS Exs. 14-14E).
6. On September 27, 2002, Ms. Jackson issued Petitioner a Letter of Debt Determination for $17,702.73, and on October 24, 2002, issued the Notice of Involuntary Administrative Salary Offsets for the same amount. (Tr. 46; PS Exs. 1 and 2).
DECISION
The standard for determining an employee’s liability in a case such as this provides that employees to whom postal funds and accountable paper are consigned “are held strictly accountable for any loss unless evidence establishes that they followed the postal procedures established when performing their duties.” Handbook F-1, Post Office Accounting Procedures (November 1996), §141.
Respondent’s burden of proof in a case of unexplained shortage is to show that a loss occurred from an account for which the employee is accountable. Respondent is not required to prove that any specific dereliction or act of negligence by Petitioner caused the loss. When a properly conducted inventory, or audit, shows a stock shortage relative to a previously established balance, this constitutes proof of loss unless other evidence raises sufficient doubt about the accuracy of the inventory or the previously established balance, or otherwise suggests that there may have been no actual loss.
There is no evidence to cast doubt on the result of the audit conducted by Ms. Lewis-Jackson on August 19, 2002. Therefore, Ms. Jackson’s testimony and the documents pertaining to that audit are sufficient to establish a loss of $17,702.73. There is also no dispute over the fact that Petitioner was responsible for the unit reserve account after August 24, 2001.
Petitioner argues that he was not adequately trained to be a unit reserve custodian and that he should be relieved of liability because of improper actions by Mr. Kienle. He also contends that he followed established procedures in performing his duties.
The evidence pertaining to training, or lack of training, is not sufficient to relieve Petitioner of liability. Even though Petitioner had not been responsible for a unit reserve account before, he accepted the unit reserve account at Bronx GPO without objection when Mr. Kienle turned it over to him. There is no doubt that he knew he was responsible for the account from that time forward, and he acknowledged that he had training in ordering, receiving and issuing stock. Likewise, Petitioner’s argument regarding the actions of Mr. Kienle do not provide him a basis for relief from liability. This argument is based primarily on his suggestion that Mr. Kienle retained access to the unit reserve after he turned it over to Petitioner. This presents an issue involving the burden of proof. As stated above, Respondent carried its burden of establishing a prima facie case by proving a loss through evidence of Ms. Lewis-Jackson’s properly conducted audit, and that the loss was in an account for which Petitioner was responsible. A showing that Petitioner, through no fault of his own, did not have exclusive access to that account may be a defense to liability. The burden of making that showing is on Petitioner, but Petitioner presented very little to support this assertion. The preponderance of evidence in the record shows that Petitioner had exclusive control of the unit reserve account after August 24, 2001.
The only remaining issue is whether there is sufficient evidence in the record to relieve Petitioner of liability on the basis that he followed established postal procedures in performing his duties.[3] Petitioner testified that he followed “all the procedures with regard to the vault and the maintenance of the paperwork with regard to that vault,” (Tr. 69), and Mr. Kienle testified that Petitioner “fulfilled all those basic requirements” of handling Form 17s and “ordering stock, returning stock to the Accountable Paper depository, fulfilling orders for customers, issuing stock to clerks, and taking stock back from clerks, and then maintaining the stock inside the vault.” (Tr. 36, 38). Respondent presented no evidence to contradict this testimony and the results of the two audits conducted by Mr. Kienle in September and November 2001, showing that the account was exactly in balance after Petitioner became the custodian, support Petitioner’s contention that he was following proper procedures. We have said many times that the mere fact that an unexplained shortage exists does not, by itself, defeat a Petitioner’s claim that he followed established procedures. If it did, that phrase in the standard of liability set out in Section 141 of the F-1 Handbook would have no meaning.
The evidence in this record is sufficient to show that Petitioner followed established procedures. The Petition is granted. Respondent may not collect $17,702.73 from Petitioner’s salary.
Bruce R. Houston
Chief Administrative Law Judge
[1] The hearing was conducted by the undersigned Administrative Law Judge via speaker telephone from Arlington, Virginia. All other participants, including the court reporter, were present in a conference room at the hearing site.
[2] References to the hearing transcript are “Tr._.” References to numbered pages attached to Respondent’s Answer will be “PS Ex._.”