Browsing: Postal Service

It continues to be a rough year for the Postal Service, which said this week that it lost $385 million in April alone — that’s on top of the $2.2 billion it has already lost this year. The numbers are pretty striking: This year’s April revenue was $1 billion lower than last year’s, and the loss was far worse than the $18 million the Postal Service projected.

A few odds and ends from today’s House Oversight and Government Reform subcommittee hearing about the Postal Service’s deteriorating financial condition — the latest in a continuing series (at least the third hearing this year, by my count). We broke the news in February that the Postal Service wanted permission to switch to 5-day delivery. But there’s been some debate over which day would be cut — Tuesday? Saturday? William Galligan, the Postal Service’s senior vice president for operations, answered that question: it would be Saturday. I believe the six-day frequency, which is essentially [cutting] the Saturday delivery day, it’s not a question…

Rep. Stephen Lynch, chairman of the House Oversight and Government Reform Subcommittee on the Postal Service, Postal Service and the District Columbia, wants to “green” the Postal Service. During a speech on the National Mall Thursday to celebrate Public Service Recognition Week, Lynch said he plans to hold a hearing this summer looking at making the Postal Service and other agencies more “green” and energy efficient. With the world’s largest fleet of vehicles, the Postal Service has already converted 20 percent of its fleet to alternate fuel capable vehicles. Our hearing will examine how best to increase that number and…

The mail is going on sale! Not all of it, though. The increasingly cash-strapped Postal Service is holding a “summer sale,” but it only affects Standard Mail, a cheaper kind of postage often used for advertising. (Letters, on the other hand, use First-Class Mail.) It runs from July 1 to September 30; eligible mailers need to send at least one million pieces of Standard Mail each year. How much is the discount? That gets a little complicated. From the Postal Regulatory Commission filing: The “Summer Sale” program… will provide a 30 percent rebate to eligible mailers on Standard Mail letters…

The Postal Service’s board of governors is meeting early next month to discuss, among other things, the financial results from the second quarter of 2009. There’s not much optimism about the numbers, considering USPS lost $384 million in the first quarter, which is traditionally the strongest of the year. Another bad sign: UPS’ earnings report. The shipping giant said its first-quarter earnings were down by 56 percent, and it expects the second quarter to be worse than previously expected. It’s not an apples-to-apples comparison between UPS and the Postal Service. UPS is a huge multinational corporation. And its products are…

I wrote yesterday about negotiations between the Postal Service and the National Association of Letter Carriers, which represents more than 214,000 city letter carriers. The negotiations are finished; both sides just agreed on a deal that allows the Postal Service to rapidly adjust delivery routes for city carriers. About 90,000 routes will be reviewed this year; the changes could take effect as early as this summer. The Postal Service reviewed about 70,000 city routes last year, and 2,400 of them were eliminated. We’ll have more details later today…

With the U.S. Postal Service poised to run out of money by year’s end, it’s had to make some tough calls. It’s cutting management and supervisory positions, encouraging employees to retire early and closing administrative offices. Its latest target? A rural airmail service that provides weekly mail delivery to about 20 addresses scattered across hundreds of square miles of Idaho backcountry. Facing a $6 billion deficit this year, the Postal Service says it can no longer afford to make the deliveries. That’s cold comfort to the residents, of course, who pay extra to get necessities such as food and medicine delivered along…

You’ll recall from this story yesterday that the Postal Service is in danger of running out of cash this year, barring new legislation from Congress. John Potter, the postmaster general, said he intends to keep paying salaries and operational expenses — but the Postal Service might have to forego its annual contribution to the retiree health benefit trust fund. What happens then? There won’t be an impact on retirees, because the trust fund covers future retiree benefits. The Postal Service currently spends about $2 billion annually to cover current retirees. The more interesting question is what Congress or the Treasury…

One other thought from today’s postal hearing. There was a lot of outrage over John Potter’s compensation package. It’s worth about $850,000, though that includes contributions to his retirement plan and his $66,000 security detail — he’s only taking home about half that amount. Still, Potter earned a $130,000 bonus last year, even though the Postal Service posted a $3 billion loss. Potter said it was because the Postal Service met other goals, like customer satisfaction and workplace safety. But the bonus prompted some congressional criticism: Rep. Stephen Lynch: Just because we’re rewarding executives at AIG… for running their companies…

I’ve got a story up on the Web site about today’s marathon Postal Service hearing. It wasn’t very encouraging: As things stand now, the Postal Service faces a $6 billion deficit, and it will run out of money by year’s end. There are some short-term fixes, like switching to 5-day delivery, or changing the way the Postal Service pays retiree health benefits. They’re detailed in my story. And they’re enough to “plug the gaps,” so to speak, and get the Postal Service through the recession. John Potter, the postmaster general, says he’s confident mail volume will pick up once the…

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