We have a story in today’s paper, and online, about the U.S. Postal Service’s plan to review nearly 1,000 post offices for possible closure. If you’re wondering which post offices are affected, we’ve uploaded a full list (pdf) from the Postal Service.
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The U.S. Postal Service wants to study roughly 1,000 post offices for possible closure – the latest cost-cutting step from an agency that is scrambling to deal with a projected $7 billion deficit this year and larger losses in 2010. The agency started its review earlier this year with approximately 3,200 post offices, and decided about 1,000 of them are “candidates for further review.” Postal managers say they will consider several factors in deciding whether to close those facilities: mail volume, proximity to other post offices, and the potential savings in labor and utility costs. Post offices only generate about…
Sen. Bill Nelson isn’t happy that some federal agencies are shying away from booking conventions and training sessions in resort cities such as Orlando and Las Vegas. After media reports that some federal agencies had formal or informal policies to avoid scheduling conferences in resort areas because of image concerns, Nelson, D-Fla., took to the Senate floor Monday to defend his state’s reputation. When you compare the cost of a hotel room in Orlando during the season with the cost of a hotel room, let’s say, in Washington, D.C., during the season, you will find that the Orlando hotels on…
Update, 11:43 a.m.: Here’s a slightly eye-popping statistic from the GAO report: The Postal Service is projecting a $7 billion loss in FY2010 (next year) — even after reducing its expenses by $8 billion. Put another way, there is a $15 billion gap between the Postal Service’s projected FY2010 revenues and its current expenses. Update, 11:37 a.m.: That was quick. Here’s GAO’s report (pdf) about why the Postal Service is on the list. Update, 11:25 a.m.: Here’s a link to GAO’s current 2009 high-risk list (pdf). The list was started in 1990 and is updated biennially; it documents agencies that…
A new Gallup poll finds the Federal Reserve is the least popular among nine “key” federal agencies. You can read the poll as an example of why government transparency is important — because the Fed’s low ranking is due, in part, to its opacity. There’s a serious debate in economics circles right now about the Fed’s performance during the economic crisis, and whether Ben Bernanke should be reappointed. But I doubt most of Gallup’s respondents are privy to that debate; many Americans simply don’t understand what the Fed does. It’s just an opaque entity that handles the economy — and…
FedFleet, the year’s biggest conference for federal fleet managers, officially begins tomorrow in Chicago (although lots of folks are there already, attending agency-sponsored meetings and getting ready for tonight’s welcome reception at Chicago’s Navy Pier). I’m flying out this afternoon from Washington, but before I do I thought I’d share a few interesting facts that come directly from Becky Rhodes, deputy associate administrator of govermentwide policy at the General Services Administration, which is hosting the conference: 1,490 people were registered to attend the conference as of July 17, which is up slightly from the 1,449 people who attended last year’s…
The latest report (pdf) from the Postal Service’s inspector general looks at the payment schedule for the retiree health care trust fund. It concludes that the Postal Service is overpaying. A lot. If the Postal Service continues the payment schedule required by the Postal Accountability and Enhancement Act of 2006 (the Act), our calculations indicate that the Postal Service could overfund its retiree health care liability by $13.2 billion by the end of fiscal year 2016. The Postal Service could pay on average $4.0 billion less each year from FYs 2009 to 2016 to prefund its retiree health benefits and…
I’ve done a fair amount of reporting on the FDA’s budgetary troubles over the last 18 months. The agency is chronically underfunded, with a rapidly-growing workload and a budget that has fallen 12 percent since 2002. But apparently that isn’t the only problem, according to a new report (pdf) from the GAO: FDA could not provide data showing its workload and accomplishments in some areas, such as its review of reports identifying potential safety issues with specific medical products. Without such information, FDA cannot develop complete and reliable estimates of its resource needs. If I’m reading this right, the problem…
Despite what you may have seen on the Drudge Report website this morning, Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack wants to ensure Americans that his department did not spend $1.2 million for two pounds of sliced ham. A series of alarmist headlines posted at the top of the Drudge Report home page lists details on some of the purchases Agriculture has made through the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act. The headlines, which link to summaries of contracts on the Recovery.gov website, seem to suggest that Agriculture is wasting stimulus money on groceries — and worse, getting overcharged. The headlines indicate that Agriculture awarded contracts of nearly $16.8…
The Treasury Department’s Bureau of Public Debt is looking for a contractor to run a couple of three-hour discussions on “Humor in the Workplace.” According to this FedBizOpps notice, which topped the Drudge Report today, the programs will “discuss the power of humor in the workplace, the close relationship between humor and stress, and why humor is one of the most important ways that we communicate in business and office life.” The requirements: Participants shall experience demonstrations of cartoons being created on the spot. The contractor shall have the ability to create cartoons on the spot about BPD jobs. The…