In Brief

EXECUTIVE MEMO

In Brief

• Postal Bonuses. Most U.S. Postal Service executives tucked an extra 6 percent or 12 percent of salary in their wallets at Christmas. The cash awards rewarded executives for the improved financial and delivery performance of the USPS in 1995. Postal Service net income hit an all-time high of $1.8 billion and broke some on-time service records last year.
• IRS Performance. Although the IRS reported that it generally met its performance goals for the 1995 tax filing season, the General Accounting Office concluded late last year that several of the agency's measurements masked problems. For example, GAO said, while the IRS reported answering 11 percent more phone inquiries in 1995 than the year before, GAO testers were able to get through on IRS lines only 9 percent of the time.
• Un-Customary Service. Late last year, 85-year-old Ferdinand Gallozzi, special assistant to the director of the Customs Service's management center in New York City, ended his career as the longest-tenured employee in the history of the agency. Gallozzi started at Customs as a messenger boy in 1926.
• Managers' President. In December, Dennis Syzmanski was named president of the Professional Managers Association, which represents federal managers. Syzmanski, a GS-15 program manager at the IRS, has 19 years of federal service under his belt.
• Gore to Landers: Advice Taken. Advice columnist Ann Landers can take at least partial credit for improvements in the phone service of the Immigration and Naturalization Service. When it took her 45 minutes to get through to the agency's office in Chicago, she complained in her syndicated column, which is read by millions. Vice President Gore is apparently one of those readers. In a letter to Landers published early this year, Gore thanked her for highlighting the situation. Gore reported that he had mobilized the National Performance Review to address the problem.