The Great Debate

Filed under OIG

Tags: Delivery, financial crisis, pension, postal service, retiree health benefits, revenue, Saturday Delivery

The debate about the Postal Service’s future is heating up and Pushing the Envelope is interested in your views. Last week the Senate Subcommittee on Federal Financial Management, Government Information, Federal Services, and International Security held a hearing on the Future of the Postal Service. The week before there was a hearing in the House on the Postal Service’s financial crisis and future viability, and on April 12, the Government Accountability Office issued a report laying out the strategies and options to maintain the Postal Service’s viability.

Some of the strategies under discussion include:
• Ending Saturday delivery.
• Reducing the size of the workforce.
• Making postal employees pay the same share of health and life insurance premiums that other federal employees pay.
• Generating revenue through new products.
• Allowing the Postal Service more pricing freedom.
• Restructuring the Postal Service’s network of mail processing facilities.
• Moving retail services from Post Offices to alternative access options.

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One item that is generating a great deal of discussion is whether the large payments the Postal Service must make for retiree health benefits should be restructured. One option is to give back some of the excess pension funding and allow the Postal Service to use these funds for other purposes. In January, the Office of Inspector General for the Postal Service issued a report that found the Postal Service had been overcharged $75 billion for its pension obligations from 1971 to 2009 because of an inequitable method of calculating the size of those obligations. Adding to this inequity is the fact that the Postal Service is currently required to fund 100 percent of its retiree health and pension obligations. Very few in private industry do this, and the rest of the federal government’s pension funding level is only 41 percent. In addition, the OIG believes that the forecast of the Postal Service’s future retiree health care costs is too high. Fixing these issues could save the Postal Service $7 billion a year.

What do you think? Which strategies will be most useful to the Postal Service? Should the mix of strategies include cutting delivery service?

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

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194 Responses to “The Great Debate”

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194
Ethan Madison, Jr. Says:
July 16th, 2010 at 3:07 am
I guess we should focus on the human resources work plan to work this out
193
Will B Says:
May 23rd, 2010 at 10:57 am
Joe R. I am not sure what country you live in, but here in America $10 an hour, we would all be living in poverty!!! I know cashiers at Best Buy that makes more than your suggestion for a Federal employee!! Think realistic!!!
192
postalidiot Says:
May 22nd, 2010 at 8:26 pm
Go into the offices and talk to the employees who are at the retirement age and ask them what they need in order to retire. Some are not eligible because of the 5 year rule for insurance. Some need an incentive to pay off some bills. Some need don’t need anything but to have their head examined. Find out from the people themselves, a personal touch goes a long way.
191
postalidiot Says:
May 22nd, 2010 at 8:17 pm
None of the proposals talk about being over managed. When you send two managers into a different office in the district every day looking for stickers in the carriers case, it is too ridiculous to mention. Why can’t the supervisor do this? One day in our office we had 2 of those checkers standing and shooting the bull with the P.M. and the supervisor. This is nuts, that’s about $250,000 in saleries a year standing around screwing off and expecting the workers to work harder. Cut management not just retitle them, and you will get people to feel like doing more.