Docket No. DCA 24-34

FINAL DECISION

The Postal Service seeks to collect $2,530 from Mr. Emma based on a bank shortage that allegedly occurred at the Lake Hopatcong, New Jersey, Post Office on October 12, 2022.
For the reasons discussed below, I find that Mr. Emma is not liable for the debt. The Postal Service may not collect the debt by involuntary administrative salary offset.

FINDINGS OF FACT

1. Since at least October 2022, Mr. Emma has worked as a part-time flexible clerk, a non-management position, at the Lake Hopatcong, New Jersey, Post Office (hereinafter “unit”). He adheres to a rigid close-out process. (Tr. 53–54, 92–95).¹
2. On October 12, 2022, Mr. Emma was the only clerk working, and the postmaster was not at the unit (Resp. Exh. 6 at 23–24; Resp. Exh. 11 at 41–45; Tr. 17, 59–60).
3. Later that month, the Postal Service recorded that a bank shortage of $2,530 occurred at the unit on October 12, 2022. It claimed that $1,116 was deposited when $3,646 should have been received. The shortage was based on cash only. The unit could not locate the final deposit slip from the Retail Systems Software (RSS) or the handwritten deposit slip for that day. (Pet. Exh. 5 at 10; Resp. Exh. 4 at 14; Tr. 29–36).
4. The Postal Service first associated the shortage with an employee who did not work at the unit. But in December 2023, the Postal Service issued to Mr. Emma a Letter of Demand and Invoice No. 1596636 to recover the shortage. (Pet. Exh. 2 at 3; Pet. Exh. 4 at 5–7, Pet. Exh. 5 at 8–10; Resp. Exh. 2 at 12; Resp. Exh. 3 at 13; Resp. Exh. 6 at 21).
5. Mr. Emma timely filed a petition for hearing with the Judicial Officer Department, which docketed the petition as DCA 24-34 (Pet. Exh. 1 at 1–2; Notice of Docketing, Jan. 23, 2024).
6. A hearing was held by video conference on June 11, 2024.

DECISION

When the Postal Service seeks to recover an unexplained cash shortage, it must prove, by a preponderance of the evidence, that a loss occurred for which the petitioner is accountable and the amount of that loss. Delgado v. United States Postal Service, DCA 19-154, et al., 2019 WL 6700241 (Nov. 1, 2019). In other words, the Postal Service bears the initial burden of proving that (1) the petitioner was accountable for the money and (2) there was a monetary shortage representing an actual loss. Id.
Mr. Emma is accountable for his drawer by regulation. Id. And in this case, that drawer was used for all the unit’s transactions on October 12, 2022. Handbook PO-209, Retail Operations Handbook (Oct. 2012), was in effect in 2022 and was a regulation pursuant to 39 C.F.R. § 211(a)(3). It stated:
All field unit employees are accountable for the following:
(a) All accountable paper issued to them as a stamp credit.
(b) All funds received from accountable paper sales until deposited as postal funds.
(c) Accurate and timely reporting of all financial transactions.
All employees assigned responsibility for accountable paper are liable for losses in their accountability.
Handbook PO-209, § 11-15.3.2.
Rather than rely on Handbook PO-209, the Postal Service pointed to Handbook F-101, Field Accounting Procedures, as legal authority for holding Mr. Emma accountable for the shortage. It identified subsections 3-1.1, 3-1.1.1, and 3-2.2 as applicable.² But those subsections address responsibility, not accountability. Compare Handbook F-101 § 3-1 (Sept. 2022) (Responsibilities) with Handbook PO-209, chap. 11 (Oct. 2012) (Financial Accountabilities); see also McGee v. United States Postal Service, DCA 16-184, 2016 WL 10572245 (Nov. 14, 2016). In addition, the first two sections of the Handbook F-101 on which the Postal Service relied pertain only to management responsibility. Mr. Emma, however, was not a member of management.
Still, having determined that Mr. Emma was accountable under Handbook PO-209, I now turn to whether the Postal Service proved that there was a monetary shortage representing an actual loss. The Postal Service relied mainly on a screenshot from the bank’s records to argue that only $1,116 was deposited, while the Postal Service believes $3,646 should have been deposited as cash. But both the RSS and handwritten deposit slips for October 12, 2022, which should have formed the basis for the bank’s record and could have proved the existence of the debt, were missing from the unit’s records. Thus, the underlying documents necessary to prove the existence of the debt were not introduced into evidence.
The Postal Service also provided a spreadsheet showing what it alleged to be all the transactions by tender for October 12, 2022 (all of which were conducted by Mr. Emma). But this spreadsheet did not prove the shortage claimed. The cash tender amounts did not add up to $3,646. Other than noting that there were two split tender transactions, which could have been part cash and part debit card, the Postal Service offered no explanation for the incongruity.
In sum, the Postal Service did not meet its burden of proof on this element.

ORDER

The petition is granted. The Postal Service may not collect the debt by involuntary administrative salary offset.