Contract Delivery Service Cost Attribution

Contract Delivery Service (CDS) is a contractual agreement between the Postal Service and an individual or firm for the delivery and collection of mail to and from homes and businesses. The Postal Service considers CDS to be one of its three primary delivery types, in addition to city carriers and rural carriers. CDS suppliers are not Postal Service employees, but independent contractors who provide delivery on specific routes not serviced by Postal Service mail carriers. The Postal Service manages CDS contracts within the transportation functional area, which consists of a wide variety of different contracts related to transportation. In fiscal year (FY) 2020, the Postal Service had more than 7,900 active CDS contracts, which cost a total of about $447 million. Our objective was to assess whether all CDS costs are accurately captured and reliably attributed to mail products and services.