An Acting Finance Supervisor in New York City won mitigation of his removal from the Postal Service for “Failure to Account for Postal Funds / Failure to Follow Proper Procedures.”  Under his supervision shortages of postal stock from the Unit Reserve and from the Retail Floor Stock occurred totaling approximately $45,000.  Management failed to consider mitigating factors such as his “lack of intent and culpability.”

The Merit System Protection Board (MSPB) administrative judge determined that, although the Acting Supervisor’s misconduct was serious, the removal penalty exceeded the bounds of reasonableness. Specifically, the administrative judge found as follows:

[The deciding official’s] overwhelming concern was the amount of the shortage, which is substantial, and his belief that as the acting supervisor, the appellant should have been held to a higher standard because of his fiduciary role. [The deciding official] failed to consider the appellant’s previous record, which he testified was irrelevant, [the appellant’s] years of service, any possible mitigating factors, e.g., his time away from the station, or his wife’s illness, and the fact [that] the appellant has no prior discipline.

In mitigating the Acting Supervisor’s removal to a 60-day suspension, the MSPB administrative judge relied on the Salvatore Del Prete’s 34 years of unblemished service, his prior work record, his time away from the station, and the fact that he was only an acting supervisor and may have been improperly held to a higher standard of conduct. The administrative judge further found that there was no evidence of intent or culpability on the appellant’s part and that the absence of intent was a mitigating factor.

The inital case stemmed from the Del Prete’s failure  to explain a $45,000 shortage in postal funds for which he was responsible and violated agency rules by telling two Postal employees the combination to the Unit Reserve safe, by failing to have a second Postal employee witness and verify a withdrawal from the safe, and by not requiring two employees to conduct inventories, instead conducting inventories by himself at 4:00 a.m. 

… in mitigating the removal penalty, the administrative judge relied primarily on the Acting Supervisor’s lack of intent to defraud the agency, his “approximately 34 years of unblemished service,” and the fact that the Postal Service erroneously held him to a higher standard of conduct, despite the fact that he was only an “acting” supervisor.

MSPB Del Prete vs USPS (PDF)