With the U.S. Postal Service on a steady slide toward insolvency, labor and management are double-teaming the White House in a bid for help.
In a joint letter to President Obama this week, the Postal Service’s four unions, as well as organizations representing postmasters and postal supervisors, asked the administration to override the Office of Personnel Management’s position on allocation of pension costs.
If that subject sounds like a snoozer, some see it as a magic bullet for the Postal Service’s many ills.
Over the years, the Postal Service has overpaid between $50 billion to $75 billion into the Civil Service Retirement System and another $6 billion or so into the Federal Employees Retirement System, according to outside studies. Although the Postal Service would love to have that money back, OPM has stuck to its stance that Congress must authorize any change in actuarial methods, even though some lawmakers say the personnel office could do the job on its own.
“Since OPM refuses to exercise this authority, we urge you to use your authority as President to do so,” the letter states.
A White House spokesman did not respond to requests for comment Friday.
The Postal Service, which suffered record losses last year, expects to run out of money in September if it has to make a legally required $5.5 billion payment for retiree health care.
5 Comments
This seems to be a no brainer to me. If this study was done by a private company with all the right figures what is the problem? This money is the postal services money and it should be given back. If over contributing to both funds has caused our financial woes and we would be in the black then the right thing to do is put that money back in our reserve account so we don’t have to be bailed out by the federal government
I would think that the great amount of money involved (billions) would warrant some kind of explanation as to exactly HOW the fund was overpaid. Was it an error? If so, what was the error? If not, then the unions and the USPS are simply asking for money to be returned?
What the heck happened?!
The money taken from employees was miscalculated and no one caught it for years. Simply put when an audit was done last year they discovered the formula was wrong and the overpayment into the fund was huge. Overpayments in CSRS, FERS, and health care cost contributions. Total was between 50-75 Billion. Audit done by three different outside sources.
While the figures may support the issue of OVER payment, the real question is why won’t they release/credit the USPS with these over payments?
I would venture to say that it has already been spent elsewhere by Congress and they don’t want to look worse than they already do.
Face reality, who in their right mind would trust the post office with any surplus of monies? Those clowns have never in the history of the organiization even broke even, And just think if they didnt pay up front to the retirees fund, do you actually think there would be any monies there when it was due, You bozo’s are only irritated because so many union officials, postmasters, supervisors, and psycho carriers are getting caught stealing, murdering, imbezzeling funds, and misapproiating funds they are all denying a village somewhere of an idiot. The day the post office can not be misnanaged is the day the sun will rise in the west and postal service will not be a contradiction of terms