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.
Loading ...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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Charge businesses more for all the bulk mail catalogs and junk mail I receive, I don’t buy any of the stuff and it never makes it even into my house – straight to the recyclable bin. Maybe they would give more thought to who their real customers are and alternate forms of messaging,
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After reading this entry, it sounds like the leaders over the post office believe the problem is just that they aren’t making enough money. But is it possible that this problem is just a symptom of the larger problem/s? The task is to first figure out what is causing the post office to spend so much (or causing them to lose so much money). And from there, proceed with a solution (or solutions)
–Are customers frequently choosing a private delivery service and if so, why? Better rates? More reliable service (fewer lost packages, faster delivery, better handling, etc)? Friendlier atmosphere? Are customers using email and bill pay rather than buying stamps? What can the post office do to accomodate those needs as well?
**My advice for customer satisfaction:
Figure out what customers need or want most, then do it if possible. If the post office uses customer surveys, they need to include a portion where the customer tells (in their own words) what is working and what isn’t. Multiple choice questions can’t identify every problem.
–Is the post office in debt and if so, how much are they spending on interest charges? Interest charges, in my opinion, just waste your money IF you are staying in debt longer than needed. Is the post office spending money on services that are not being provided adequately?
**If the problem is debt or finding wasteful spending, my advice is that the post office get a good team of financial advisors that will help them get out of debt and/or figure out smarter spending strategies. (for example: designing fewer stamps, cutting salaries of lazy workers)
In my opinion, its best to try and fix the problem before you cut services. If the post office wants the customer to be a large part of their revenues, they need to put the customer first. (And remember, employees are customers too).
The last thing I wanted to say is that I think the post office needs to be VERY cautious about cutting Saturday service. I noticed that someone said they would be forced to do business with a competitor if USPS closes on Saturdays. If the post office MUST close on Saturdays, they should stay open later on weekdays. And by “staying open later” I mean open the post office at a later hour so that it can close at a later hour.
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Everyone be advised that eliminating Saturday delivery is not the answer. The workers are paid a salary. They will not lose money but gain a day off. The money savings comes from not using the vehicles they use for delivering (ie. gas) and the utilities that aren’t being used on Saturdays. Stopping Saturday delivery is not going to fix the problem. It may help some but not nearly enough. Now if they want to redue their salaries to accomidate the additional time off then it will go farther in fixing this issue but lets face it nobody wants to take a pay cut.
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I agree with the others that cutting only Saturday delivery wont fix the problem, but simply help. Maybe they should do a few things: cut Saturday delivery as well as matching the salaries to those days off; increase postage a few cents and keep it there; even their salaries/401K etc. as all other federal employees.
It needs to be fair across the board. If they are going to cut Saturday delivery then they need to make sure that the postal carrier isnt getting paid for that day off.
If the post office is going to even out the playing field then all USPS employees should be on the same payout/salary/401K etc. as all other federal employees because they are federal employees. Why is it that they can get special treatment?
Increasing the stamp payments will not make us consumers all that happy but what is more annoying is increasing it a cent or 2 every year. Just raise it like 5 cents and stick with it for a while. However raising the prices might make people cut back even more on sending through the mail.
Basically I feel that they need to even all playing fields, not just one, to make this work.
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Has the postal service considered selling advertising on their vehicles and possibly on stamps?
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I have a response to one of the comments that were previously posted. They said to cut back on the wages of the employees because they would be being paid for Saturday but would have a day off? That is mostly incorrect, most of the employees that work on Saturday aren’t being paid full time wages. Most Saturday employees are considered part time and are paid hourly wages, part time postal employees don’t make nearly enough to save the postal service that much money but cutting Saturday delivery.
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For years we have been over managed, giving less service, and the main focus has been on stupid stuff instead of getting more buisness and more personal to the public. We need to act like we really want their buisness, instead of putting all of these stupid restrictions on them. Quit acting like the employees are stupid, let us do our job. Also I am sure you could get several to retire if you would make it so they can retire with their health insurance. Do away with the 5 year mandate. No one will reire without health insurance.
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City Carriers are not salaried we get paid an hourly wage. We Currently have rotating days off and sunday so eliminating saturday is still the number of days worked. There would be layoffs. Part Of the problem I see is management. WE average 1 supervisor for every 9 employees, ups has 1 for every 72!
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The post office cannot compete with UPS or FedEx. Last time I had a box shipped through them they “lost” it for an entire week. They have no tracking system in place and if they actually follow the rules that were described to my when my box was lost they could have told me exactly where it went and what went wrong. I refuse to use them whenever possible because of all the problems they have caused. I have had my mail stolen by my mail carrier and even with proof they just brush it all under a rug.
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My route is so large now that I have to use Saturday as a catch-up day, where I manage to get everything that has been curtailed all week delivered with help of carriers whose routes have undertime on Saturday due to their closed businesses. What will I do with all the mail if we are closed on Saturday?!
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Maybe it is time to go head to head with Fedex and UPS. USPS is a better, faster, and less expensive option. There is an illusion that it is not reliable.
Automate, track, and improve this. Then do more business.
Or sell off to one of these companies.
Also charge more for the trash that is sent through the mail. Really.. who wants it?
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You’ll love this…
I’m a casual employee. (not by choice)
I work at MVS and just got sent home early so my boss could save the Post office
$13.12, which is 45 clicks of my hourly wage.
Mind you this is the beginning of vacation season.
At this rate of annual fiscal savings, you folks only have to do this 586,890,243 more times to save the
$7.7 Billion you’re losing this year.
You call this management.
You’re running this place like the Russians ran Chernobyl.
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I think they should charge all the junk mail companies a LOT more. I get more junk mail every week that I just throw in the recycling bin than I do regular mail. It would be a win / win. Catalog companies would send out less junk because it will cost more AND it will save trees and help the environment. I mean really, you can find anything on the internet these days! You don’t need any of the junk mail you get. They have catalogs on line, coupons on line, store weekly flyers on line. If the postal carriers weren’t having to sort and haul around all this junk that would save time and money too!
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Raise the rates for “junk” mail: double or triple the rate!
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A New Business Model will Save the Post Office Significant Money
“Thinking Outside the Mailbox”
The Post Office partners with businesses where people go regularly (Dunkin Donuts, Starbucks, McDonalds). People may sign up to pick up their mail at one of these locations (Of course, this service is optional; people can still opt for home delivery.) People then go through the drive-through to pick up their daily coffee and their mail on their way to work. The Post Office will simply have to deliver the mail in larger quantities to these various establishments instead of individually to these people’s homes. A postal worker who no longer has a route will be assigned to each participating business to hand out the mail. The businesses will make money through business partnerships with the Post Office and will have more loyal customers. As an incentive for customers to sign up for the service, participating businesses will offer a slight savings for their products (e.g., coffee) to participating customers. The Post Office will save money by significantly decreasing the number of home deliveries.
By estimates of cups of coffee bought each day at these establishments (in the range of 20-25 million) and number of households in the US (approximately 114 million), we could reduce the home deliveries by about 20% without significantly decreasing the regularity of people receiving their mail.
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The postal services should offer a good incentive buy-out package to its older employees in order to get some of the less productive employees who are making the most money and doing the less work an attractive incentive to retire.
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I think it`s time to get rid of these contract companies doing EXFC and Mystery Shopper.This can be done in office saying millons.
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has no one thought of doing away with door to door walking routes??? what a huge waste of time!!! I deliver almost 1200 mounted deliveries in the time it takes to deliver 4 or 500 walking ones! Also, if we didn’t have the weekly “garbage” (Red Plum or whatever everyone else calls them) I could probably deliver more stops EVERY day. And maybe they could quit wasting money for automatic flat sorting machines, we don’t get enough of them to matter anymore. Let carriers find the most time effective way to deliver, I’ve been doing this for 30 years–do you think I like fumbling around with my DPS on the business section of my route? I works fine on the residential… One more thing–everybody is whining about catalogs–they are easy to handle–charge more for POSTCARDS, they are the second worst thing to handle in the mail system (2nd to Red Plum!!)
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Offer early outs with cash incentives to those employees near retirement age. Then start giving the remainder of employees an extra block or two to their routes. This would save the Postal Service billions of dollars. Besides a lot of these older postal workers have been with the postal service 20+ years and have had a lot of wear and tear on the bodies.
I believe this was offered a year or two ago but without the cash incentive. Add the cash incentive and you would have some takers. This is what is being done at other institutions to scale back on employees in order to save money.
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Saturday is the only time I can go to the Post Office because I work all week.
Closing on Saturday sends the message that the government is a failure. If the government has to make cutbacks………………………what is the general public supposed to think? No confidence at all in the government right now!
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