House Post Office Jobs Reportedly Padded Out : Investigation: Figures on mail-handling were boosted to justify more political hires, sources say. House task force is still wrangling over its report.

A draft congressional report alleges that the former House postmaster inflated mail-handling statistics by as much as 100 million pieces a year to justify more political patronage workers for his operation, sources familiar with the report said Friday.

The report is being thrashed out by three Democrats and three Republicans on a task force looking into wrongdoing and mismanagement at the House post office.

The report, already four days overdue, now appears likely to be delayed until after next week’s Democratic National Convention because of partisan disagreement over what it should include and how to present the findings.

The task force was unable to reach agreement Thursday night after a sometimes stormy 4 1/2-hour meeting that featured shouting and table-pounding. One member, Rep. Al Swift (D-Wash.), stormed out and slammed the door behind him.

House Administration Committee Chairman Charlie Rose (D-N.C.) said he wants a bipartisan document. But others on the task force said they expect separate majority and minority reports.

Republicans want the document to include the names of 13 House members, so far unnamed, who have been identified as having questionable dealings with the scandal-plagued postal facility.

But Democrats want to leave the names, most of them members of their party, out of the public report until the Ethics Committee or the Justice Department can determine whether there is reason to believe there was wrongdoing by any of the lawmakers.

The situation has brought more embarrassment to the House’s Democratic leaders, coming on the heels of the chamber’s much broader bad-check scandal.

One GOP source said the report falls short of giving a complete picture of the lawmakers’ suspect activities. It is intended only as a guide to the ethics panel and to federal prosecutors, who already are well into an investigation of alleged embezzlement and drug dealing at the post office, the official said.

He and other sources familiar with the draft commented only on condition of anonymity.

Both Democrats and Republicans on the task force agree that the institution’s internal, independently run mail system was rife with mismanagement and abuse of political patronage, said task force members.

Former Postmaster Robert V. Rota, who resigned amid the controversy on March 19, boosted estimates of mail coming through the facility to provide more jobs for influential politicians, the report says.

“We didn’t have ghost employees, we had ghost mail,” said one source.

Rota did not immediately return telephone calls to his home seeking comment.

The investigation by a six-member bipartisan task force of the House Administration Committee parallels a grand jury probe by U.S. Atty. Jay B. Stephens in Washington.

The federal investigation has included subpoenas of office expense records for at least three Democratic representatives: Dan Rostenkowski of Illinois, and Joe Kolter and Austin J. Murphy of Pennsylvania.

Among matters being investigated are whether lawmakers used their office expense accounts to buy stamps, then traded the stamps back for cash for other uses.