Controls and procedures

Management is responsible for the preparation, integrity, and fair presentation of the financial statements of the Postal Service.

Disclosure Controls

We maintain disclosure controls and procedures that are designed to ensure that information required to be disclosed in our quarterly and annual reports is recorded, processed, summarized, and reported within the time frames specified by P.L. 109-435, and that this information is accumulated and communicated to our management, including the Postmaster General and Chief Financial Officer, as appropriate, to allow timely decisions regarding required disclosure. In designing and evaluating the disclosure controls and procedures, we recognize that any controls and procedures, no matter how well designed and operated, can provide only reasonable assurance of achieving the desired control objectives, and we were required to apply our judgment in evaluating the cost-benefit relationship of possible controls and procedures.

We carried out an evaluation, under the supervision and with the participation of management, including the Postmaster General and Chief Financial Officer, of the effectiveness of the design and operation of disclosure controls and procedures as of September 30, 2008. Based on the foregoing, the Postmaster General and Chief Financial Officer concluded that our disclosure controls and procedures were effective at the reasonable assurance level as of September 30, 2008.

Internal Controls

There have been no changes during the year covered by this report in our internal control over financial reporting or in other factors that have materially affected, or are reasonably likely to materially affect, our internal control over financial reporting.