“The Path Forward” of the Postal Service

Filed under Strategy & Public Policy  

Tags: , , , ,

On March 2, Postmaster General John E. Potter presented a 10-year “action plan” to meet the challenges faced by the Postal Service as it encounters declining mail volumes combined with increasing overhead costs. The plan comes as a product of a yearlong study by the Postal Service and a number of leading consultants to identify and analyze over 50 different actions that could help counter the changing marketplace.

The Postmaster General warned that if the Postal Service continues to operate as it is, it will run a cumulative debt of $238 billion over the next 10 years. Even if the Postal Service institutes every conceivable control within management control – product and service actions, productivity improvements, workforce flexibility improvements and purchasing savings – it can only shrink the debt to $115 billion.

Which area do you believe is most important for Congress to address?

View Results

Loading ... Loading ...

In order for the Postal Service to continue its primary mission of affordable and reliable delivery, it will need the kind of flexibility that only legislative changes can provide. The Postmaster General outlined key areas:

    1. Retiree Health Benefits Prefunding – The Postal Service currently would shift from prepaying its fund to paying premiums as they are billed, as other government agencies and private companies operate.
    2. Delivery Frequency – The Postal Service would consider 5-day delivery and other adjustments that would allow it to operate more efficiently.
    3. Expand Access – The retail network would be examined in order to close unproductive outlets and expand the postal presence in other retail channels, including online.
    4. Workforce – In order to have greater workforce flexibility, the Postal Service would need to shift workers and better utilize part-time employees in the workforce.
    5. Pricing – The prices for postal products need to reflect demand and market-dominant products should be limited by a single price cap.
    6. Expand Postal Products and Services – Given the evolving needs coming from technological and consumer change, the Postal Service is looking to streamline the process involved with rolling out new products and services.
    7. Oversight – The current oversight model has encumbered the Postal Service with a number of agencies and commission as with authority as well as Congress. The roles and processes of oversight need to be clarified to allow for efficient operations.

What do you think? Are the actions mentioned above enough for the Postal Service to remain viable in the future? Would you suggest further steps?

This topic is hosted by the OIG’s Risk Analysis Research Center (RARC).

Post to Twitter

 

Permalink | Comments (21) | Mar 3, 2010

 

 

21 Responses to ““The Path Forward” of the Postal Service”

Pages: « 3 [2] 1 » Show All

  1. 20
    Jukester Says:
    April 26th, 2010 at 9:20 pm

    To balance post office budget:

    Hello, some comments are as follows:
    1) Institute a tiered delivery charge so rural and suburban customers with “end of driveway” delivery are in a higher cost tier. Many newer suburban customers have community mailboxes which is much more efficient. Low income rural customer delivery could be subsidized.
    2) Break up post office into regional carriers like AT&T was broken up, to foster competition.
    3) Stop residential delivery on Weds instead of Saturday – this avoids 2 day delay in mail over the weekend should Sat. be stopped.

  2. 19
    lsant666 Says:
    April 26th, 2010 at 4:25 pm

    1.) Go to a five day work week.

    2.) If there are labor holes to fill, hire, NO overtime at ALL! Companies in the private sector have on call employees, so can you.

    3.) Offer early retirement, and let newer workers come in at lower pay.

    4.) Postal workers should pay the same percentage of health care insurance as other federal employees- why are they special?

    5.) Eliminate junk mail. I don’t want it. If you only had to deliver real mail that I want or I need you would not have to come to my house 2/3 of the time.

    6.) Charge everyone first class rate, especially those junk mail companies – heck, charge them double.

  3. 18
    XEPMAN Says:
    April 14th, 2010 at 5:46 pm

    I work for the Postal Service as a carrier. I want you all to know you are wasting your time. The Postal Service is a dinosaur that will fail within the next 5 years. It is an outdated service. Vinyl records, pay phones and now the USPS. Let’s face it; it is over. You have managers doing special assignments standing in offices WATCHING people work and doing reports on them. These new flat machines should do away with thousands of management jobs. It won’t. I am not a brainwashed union idiot either. The place is up for grabs and the powers that be are trying to justify their pathetic excuses for jobs. GO FED EX AND UPS! Fed Ex business is up 150%.. hmmm.. A monopoly that cannot make money.. How sad but very funny also..

  4. 17
    M.A.A of San Francisco Says:
    March 31st, 2010 at 11:59 pm

    It’s true that supervisors doing to much work.Is that a reason why they hire too much supervisors. Mismanagement.
    5 days delivery is suck because other company will get that opportunity to get our job for that particular day. So i suggest just keep offering early retirement and just give them their TSP so they will have enough retirement money. Or another solution is to have a little salary cut.Lastly, some supervisor needs to step down to be a carrier to eliminate overtime.

  5. 16
    penguin Says:
    March 24th, 2010 at 2:32 pm

    I’d like to propose that the USPS save a few bucks by not harassing its employees.If we let go several hundred Postal lawyers, we’d save some real money. What a time and money waster- besides, it’s Federal Law signed in 2002 that the employees be protected from this.What a shame, locally, it isn’t stopping in spite of these facts- could save more than a job- someone’s sanity! We shouldn’t be losing sleep and living in constant fear from management, often retaliatory, over getting a letter from point A to Point B! It needs to be stopped!

  6. 15
    Kevin From Lincoln Nebraska Says:
    March 15th, 2010 at 9:30 am

    What the post office needs to do is start putting out limited edition stamps with a limited number printed so collectors start buying them up and holding on to them. This gets cash flow in. When I lived in Las Vegas the casino’s would put out limited edition gaming tokens and then the collectors would have them saved up. Or make a limited stamp at a small discount (kind of like the forever stamp but opposite) and have the stamp expire after so long (say 6 month period) and after that time they would be no good except to a collector. Keep up the good work at USPS. I sell on eBay and use your service most of all.

  7. 14
    krazy1 Says:
    March 14th, 2010 at 10:05 pm

    I agree with Skippy and Ben – I am a supervisor and am so sick of being treated like i am an idiot from the MPOOs and SR MPOO’s – do we really need so many of the MPOO’s breathing down my neck. I have tons and tons of reports to do daily – why not just let me do my job? Those idiots uptop forgot where they came from – they use to be clerks and carriers – so what makes them so special now? Forget all the stupid reports and lets get down to business of delivering the mail and helping our customers.
    And the mystery shop program – do away with it – why not hire within to do the job. Train our rehab employees to go around and do this job. And instead of getting a report telling everyone how bad you did (and notice that not many get 100% – its because the mystery shopper does not want us to get 100% all the time – they would be out of a job- duh)
    And after a secret shopper is done – have them go back to the manager and pull that employee asside and help them understand what they did wrong. Stop paying outside help and keep the money inhouse.

  8. 13
    Bruce Says:
    March 14th, 2010 at 12:09 am

    Marcie – When you do all the blogging and posting that your gonna do make sure you tell them about all the other stuff you’ve sent and didn’t have a problem with. Or make sure you tell them that you are now paying 3x’s the price to use Fed ex…and make sure you tell them then the USPS delivers MILLIONS of items every day without problem. It sucks and is unfortunate, but the % of lost or damaged or late mail from the USPS is minimal in comparison to the total amount the handle each day. OH, and I’m sure one late package didn’t ruin your Nephew’s birthday, stop stop using your nephew to prove your point.

  9. 12
    Marcie D Says:
    March 11th, 2010 at 8:28 pm

    I used to care tremendously about the USPS and its future but after my most recent experience I could care less. From now on I will use FedEx.

    I sent a package from New Orleans (containing a king cake, superbowl gifts, cash, and our nephew’s birthday card) on Feb 19th. I bought insurance, delivery confirmation and sent it priority mail.

    It is now March 11 and after weeks of listening to rude USPS reps tell me they had no idea where the package was I finally saw an update today that it made it to a post office 30 minutes from its destination but is now being sent back to me…for no reason!

    1. Thanks for ruining my nephew’s bday
    2. Thanks for raising my blood pressure
    and…
    3. Thanks for making me aware of the USPS’ horrible customer service and, well, service.

    I plan to tweet about this and share on facebook and tumblr. And I’ll be sure to let others know that if they ever need to mail something of importance they need to use FEDEX OR UPS or some other source.

    Thanks for nothing but disappointment.

  10. 11
    mahan Says:
    March 9th, 2010 at 8:33 pm

    As a current postal letter carrier, what I say will get some people angry. I think the 5 day delivery is the way to go. My union will not support it, but over 90% of the carriers in my office support this idea. The other 10% includes union officials and the replacement carriers.
    Secondly, they need to combine offices. We don’t need one Post master in every town and two or more supervisors to watch small number of workers. The Postal Service is the only organization which employs more people to watch then those who work. Make the workers independant contractors and give the the power to make decisions and pay the consequeses of my actions.

Pages: « 3 [2] 1 » Show All

Leave a Reply