Post Office Closures: A Primer

A Primer - If you’re confused by the U.S. Postal Service’s myriad strategies to pull itself out of financial distress, you’re not alone. Postal officials have floated many ideas to save money in the past two years — including the closure of thousands of post offices across America — only to pull back after communities and politicians pushed back. The Congressional Research Service is weighing in with a primer on post office closures. The CRS’s report has a simple mission: To answer common questions about post office closures. Also covered are how many postal employees might lose their jobs, the role of regulators in the closure process and how many post offices could be shuttered. Here are some telling facts in the report: The country had 42,287 post offices in fiscal year 1971. In the last fiscal year, there were 35,119 — a 17 percent drop. Also, lawmakers have introduced more than two dozen bills in the 112th Congress to address the Postal Service’s financial problems.

Source: Washington Post Federal Eye

USPS "like Greece" Without Comprehensive Reform

Speaking at the PostalVision 2020 Conference, Postmaster General Patrick Donahoe said the organization could not survive with only “piecemeal” legislative reforms, such as simply correcting healthcare and pension finances. He said a more comprehensive rethink over the cost structure of the Postal Service was needed if it was to survive in the long-term. “If we don’t do something about the costs in this organization, we are going to look like Greece,” he said, referring to the near-bankrupt European country. “People say that if we just eliminate the (Retiree Health Benefit Fund) prefunding we’ll be okay. That’s wrong. Even if we have prefunding no longer there, we will still be an unsustainable business.” Donahoe offered worst-case estimates suggesting that USPS was heading towards a $97bn annual operating cost by 2016 on a $60bn revenue, while suffering a $58.2 debt. But he said the Postal Service’s proposed plan, with the support of Congress, would resolve the problems, albeit only returning the Postal Service to a profit level of around $1.5bn a year.

Source: Post & Parcel

APWU Files Complaint

The APWU filed a complaint with the Postal Regulatory Commission on June 12 seeking to stop the Postal Service from implementing Phase 1 of its consolidation plan, which calls for the USPS to consolidate 48 mail processing plants this summer and to lower service standards effective July 1. The USPS cannot implement the changes without first obtaining an advisory opinion from the commission, the complaint says. Federal law requires the USPS to seek an advisory opinion from the PRC whenever it plans to make nationwide changes in service, but the commission doesn’t expect to issue a formal opinion on the plan until close to Labor Day. Noting that “the Postal Service case is extremely lengthy, technical and complex,” the APWU complaint [PDF] alleges that the USPS failed to submit the plan to the PRC far enough in advance of the July 1 implementation date.

Source: APWU

Major Publisher Expanding Alternative Delivery

Last June, Bloomberg BusinessWeek announced to Washington DC subscribers that it was switching to alternative delivery. BusinessWeek has continued to expand its use of alternative delivery so that now nearly 250,000 weekly issues are no longer delivered by the Postal Service. Bloomberg will likely have reached that milestone by this month after shifting 45,000 subscribers to alternative delivery this year. By the end of 2012, it hopes to have 300,000 of its 860,000 weekly subscribers delivered by a carrier other than the Postal Service.

Source: Courier Express and Postal Observer