“Neither snow, nor rain, nor heat, nor gloom of night ... will stay us from the swift completion of our appointed rounds.”
For more than 235 years, the United States Postal Service has adhered to this unofficial creed. But now, the agency responsible for delivering mail to every resident of the nation at affordable rates faces a financial crisis.
The important issue is profitability. The postal service receives no tax dollars for operating expenses, and it can be profitable if Congress makes some changes to allow it to operate like a business. The postal service is not seeking tax subsidies. It can continue to rely on the sales of postage, products and services to fund all its operations.
The increased use of the Internet, combined with an ongoing recession, has had an unprecedented impact on our country’s mail volume — and on the postal service’s bottom line.
The postal service hasn’t sat idly by watching these changes happen over the past few years. It has done things that any responsible business would do to improve efficiency and productivity. It has pursued every available option under its control to aggressively cut costs and raise revenues, including slashing operating expenses by more than $12 billion and reducing its workforce by 127,000 career employees over the past four years.
The postal service continues to consolidate processing facilities to reduce personnel and transportation costs and optimize its expansive retail network by conducting studies of approximately 3,700 retail offices for possible closure. At the same time, it’s continuing to work with local retailers to offer products and services at more convenient locations — places where people already shop, such as pharmacies, grocery stores and other appropriate retailers. This includes the introduction of the Village Post Office, an alternate access option that offers popular postal products and services such as stamps and flat-rate packaging.
These aggressive efforts, however, are insufficient to close projected budget deficits. The postal service needs Congress to enact legislation, as soon as possible, to eliminate the current mandate requiring retiree health benefit pre-payments, which costs the agency $5.5 billion annually. From 2007 through 2010, the postal service contributed almost $21 billion to its retiree health benefits fund. If it were not for the unique health benefit pre-funding requirement, the net loss from 2007 to 2011 would have been reduced by more than 80 percent.
To further reduce expenses, we have developed proposals that would enable the postal service to establish its own health-benefits program, administer its own retirement system and adjust the size of its workforce to match operational needs.
However, Congress would need to enact legislation to allow us to further pursue these cost-saving measures. In addition, legislation is needed that will give the postal service the authority to determine the frequency of mail delivery, which could save roughly $3 billion each year.
Regardless of how many people use the Internet to pay their bills and send documents, the core function of the postal service and core need of its customers — the physical delivery of mail and packages to America’s homes and businesses — will always exist.
And despite doom-and- gloom headlines, the postal service can have a bright future if given the flexibility from Congress to operate more like a business.
Michael S. Furey is acting district manager of the U.S. Postal Service’s Atlanta district.
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