Georgia Congressman Says Moving Columbus To Macon Will Cause Mail Delivery Delays
Filed under: consolidations, delivery, postal, press releases, usps
Rep. Sandford D. Bishop Jr., D-Ga. , issued the following press release:
July 29 2010
Washington, DC – Congressman Sanford D. Bishop, Jr. (GA-2) today sent a letter to the Chairman of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, Representative Edolphus “Ed” Towns (NY-10), regarding the U.S. Postal Service operations transfer from the Columbus Customer Service Mail Processing Center to the Macon Processing and Distribution Center. In the letter, dated July 28, 2010, Congressman Bishop stated a series of concerns about the transfer and its negative effects on the Columbus area.
“Attempts by the Postal Service to improve productivity and increase efficiency have resulted in new procedures which have severely impacted postal service in the Columbus area,” wrote Congressman Bishop. “Especially impacted is mail originating from Columbus, Georgia and destined for Columbus, Georgia.”
Congressman Bishop expressed his concern that the new system will force mail to be postmarked in Macon, 96 miles away, before it can be sent back to Columbus to be delivered, adding up to three days to delivery schedules. In addition, the transfer was approved May 26, 2010 and the process was to be completed by the first of this month.
“According to conversations with mail employees at the Columbus mail facility, there have been significantly more delays with mail, even though the Postal Service study suggested there would be an improvement in service,” wrote Congressman Bishop.
While a study of mail delivery systems in the Columbus area was conducted, it did not include Fort Benning, which is scheduled, under the BRAC process, to greatly increase in size. This increase in population, combined with the 96+ miles of mail travel distance will only further mail delivery delays.
“It appears that the Macon facility, which now has idle equipment, cannot deliver mail to Columbus in a timely fashion,” added Congressman Bishop
Rep. Chaffetz Introduces Bill Designating 12 Postal Holidays To Reduce USPS Operating Costs
Congressman Jason Chaffetz (R-Utah) issued the following press release:
Washington, DC—Today Congressman Chaffetz introduced HR 5919. This bill would grant USPS Postmaster General the authority to implement up to twelve “postal holidays” per year in order to reduce USPS operating costs. The Postmaster General would select days in which delivered mail volume is historically lower than normal. By reducing the number of delivery days, USPS will be able to achieve savings by reducing work hours.
“USPS is experiencing severe financial pressures due to competition from the Internet, reduced demand due to the recession, and large unfunded liabilities for retiree healthcare,” said Chaffetz. “While my bill will help to reform its dire financial situation, there is no silver bullet that will solve the Postal Service’s financial problems. Postal holidays are one of many steps needed to reform the Postal System. I am also supporting efforts to consolidate postal facilities by replicating the successful BRAC process that was used to close surplus military facilities.”
• In past three years, USPS has lost $12 billion and is expected to lose about $7 billion this year.
• At the end of FY 2009, USPS was $10 billion in debt and is expected to reach its maximum debt limit of $15 billion in 2011.
• USPS Postmaster General John Potter has stated that USPS could lose $238 billion over the next ten years unless significant reforms are implemented.
• The USPS retiree health benefit plan was $52 billion underfunded at the end of fiscal year 2009.
South Dakota Rural Letter Carrier Sentenced To Probation for Mail Theft
July 26, 2010
Sioux Falls, SD
US Attorney Brendan V. Johnson announced that a Yankton man charged with mail theft was sentenced on July 26, 2010, by US District Judge Lawrence L. Piersol. Brandon G. Novak, age 42, was sentenced to three years of probation and 40 hours of community service. Brandon G. Novak was indicted for five counts of theft of mail by postal employee by a federal grand jury on February 2, 2010. Novak was a full-time United States Postal Service employee, having been so employed since 1996. Novak was a rural mail carrier assigned to deliver mail on Rural Route 7 in Yankton, South Dakota. Between July 1, 2009, and October 15, 2009, Novak came into possession of correspondence and other mail items intended to be conveyed by the United States mail. Included within this correspondence and mail were items containing gift cards and coupons. On several occasions, Novak would take out store coupons and gift cards from mail and use them to buy personal items for himself. He pled guilty to one count of theft of mail on May 5, 2010. This case was investigated by the Office of the Inspector General – United States Postal Service. Assistant US Attorney Dennis H. Holmes prosecuted the case.
source: United States Attorney’s Office for the District of South Dakota
Sen. Susan Collins: USPS Proposed Exigent Rate Increases Are Not Justified Under Law
Filed under: postal, postal news, postal reform, press releases, usps
Senator Susan Collins issued the following press release:
SENATOR COLLINS AGREES WITH ARGUMENTS IN MOTION TO BLOCK PROPOSED POSTAL RATE HIKES
Collins Backs Position taken by the Affordable Mail Alliance
WASHINGTON, D.C. – U.S. Senator Susan Collins, Ranking Member of the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee and author of the landmark postal reform law, the Postal Accountability and Enhancement Act of 2006, issued a statement today in support of the Affordable Mail Alliance’s Motion to Dismiss the U.S. Postal Service’s proposed rate increases.
The Alliance filed its motion with the Postal Regulatory Commission, arguing that the Postal Service’s rationale for its proposed rate hikes does not meet the required criteria to use an exigent rate case – which would allow postal rates to exceed the annual price increase cap.
Senator Collins’ statement follows:
“As the author of the 2006 postal reform law, I completely agree with the Affordable Mail Alliance that the Postal Service’s proposed exigent rate increases are not justified under law.
“Let me be clear. The authority to increase rates under an exigent case can only be used in extreme and unforeseen instances – such as terrorist attacks, natural disasters, and other events that would cause significant and substantial disruptions in service. The law was not meant to be used to remedy poor economic performance or to offset an ongoing marketplace trend, such as the increased use of electronic over traditional mail.
“In addition to not meeting the criteria set forth in the law, the exigent rate case is simply a bad business decision. Rather than help restore postal solvency, an exigent rate increase will worsen the Postal Service’s crisis by further driving down mail volumes and thus revenues. Such action will erode further the Postal Service’s already declining customer base. The Postal Service should be looking at initiatives that will increase volume and attract more consumers. These rate increases will do just the opposite.”
Direct Marketing Association Statement on Postal Service Rate Hike Request
Press Release
Washington, DC, July 26, 2010 — The Direct Marketing Association (DMA) and the DMA Nonprofit Federation (DMANF) today asked the Postal Regulatory Commission (PRC) to dismiss the United States Postal Service’s (USPS) request to increase postal rates by ten times the rate permissible by law. The petition was filed by the Affordable Mail Alliance, of which the Direct Marketing Association and the DMA Nonprofit Federation are supporting members. The Affordable Mail Alliance’s members are commercial and nonprofit organizations. Commercial mail accounts for 85 percent of the Postal Service’s revenues.
The Postal Service seeks to raise prices by an average of 5.6 percent — more than ten times the current rate of inflation — claiming as “exigent” circumstances the recession of 2008-2009 and electronic diversion of First-class mail. This action by USPS comes just three years after Congress passed the Postal Accountability and Enhancement Act (PAEA) of 2006, which was supposed to prevent rate increases that exceed the rate of inflation. USPS claims that there are “exigent circumstances” that necessitate an increase, and that one of those circumstances is the shift of mail to the Internet.
The motion filed by the Affordable Mail Alliance asserts that “the Postal Service’s most fundamental problem is not the Internet, or the recession, but a lack of effective cost control.”
“Businesses across the country have had to make difficult decisions due to the recent recession – tightening their belts, increasing productivity and in some cases, cutting their workforces as their revenue fell by 20 percent or more,” said Jerry Cerasale, DMA’s senior vice president of government affairs. “Because of this highly efficient management, many of those same businesses – including UPS and FedEx – have managed to return to profitability within a quarter or two. The Postal Service has not taken the same difficult steps. Instead, its unit costs rose by six percent in 2009 as prices fell across the economy. The Service has a lot more work to do to bring their costs under control before turning to its customers for yet another rate increase.”
In the motion, the Alliance holds that “raising prices above the Consumer Price Index (CPI) in this case would nullify the single most important safeguard for mailers and the public in PAEA. If the increases are approved, the central regulatory constraint of PAEA will be dead.”
Cerasale also said, “The things that Congress envisioned as ‘exigent circumstances’ were events like September 11th, Katrina, or the anthrax crisis. Mail shifting to the Internet and the economic downturn just don’t rise to the same level as those other events.”
The Affordable Mail Alliance includes charities, large and small businesses, American household names and the customers who use the Post Office every day – customers that will suffer if USPS successfully raises rates again.
For more information or to speak with a representative from the Affordable Mail Alliance, please visit www.affordablemailalliance.org.
Affordable Mail Alliance Calls on PRC to Dismiss Postal Service Rate Hike Request
Filed under: postal, postal news, press releases, rate increase, usps
Press Release
Wrong on the Law, Wrong on Policy, Wrong on the Economy, and Wrong on Jobs:
Washington, DC – The Affordable Mail Alliance (AMA) today called on the Postal Regulatory Commission to dismiss the Postal Service’s rate hike proposal filed on July 6, 2010. AMA’s motion argues that the rate hike violates the cost controls Congress put in law to protect consumers and that the Postal Service needs to cut costs and modernize rather than raise rates an average of ten times the rate of inflation.
“Allowing the Postal Service to raise prices above the Consumer Price Index in this case would nullify the single most important safeguard for mailers and the public in the Postal Accountability and Enhancement Act of 2006 (“PAEA”),” AMA argues in its motion. Senator Susan Collins (R‐ME), an author of the 2006 law, has already said the proposed increases do not qualify for an exception under the standards established by Congress.
The Affordable Mail Alliance (AMA) is a coalition of over 700 large and small businesses, nonprofit organizations, and associations of mailers that together account for a majority of the mail sent in the United States. Its members employ over 7.5 million workers and contribute nearly one trillion dollars to the economy each year.
The PAEA limits the average postal rate hike to inflation as measured by the Consumer Price Index (CPI).There is an exception to the CPI cap only for “exigent circumstances” when the Postal Service could not continue operating without overall price increases above the CPI. But this exception is intended only for “extraordinary or exceptional circumstances” that would leave the Postal Service short of funds to provide necessary services despite “the best practices of honest, efficient and economical management.” The AMA argues that the Postal Service has not met that test, pointing out:
• Economic downturns are a part of life. The ups and downs of economic cycles, like changes in the weather, are not “extraordinary” or “exceptional” circumstances.
• The trend toward internet communications away from mail has been taking place over the past fifteen years, giving the USPS years to prepare for the decline in volume. It hasn’t.
• While the recession, which began in December 2007, caused sharp declines in volume and revenue, competitors of USPS, such as FedEx and UPS, had comparable or even greater declines.
Those and other well‐run firms, made the necessary and painful cuts in operating costs and capacity to increase productivity. The USPS did not and its productivity has fallen.
“The result has been devastating,” the motion argues. “In Fiscal Year 2009, when prices in the overall economy actually declined, the Postal Service costs per unit of output increased by more than six percent. Had the Postal Service merely held its costs to the level of inflation in the general economy, the Postal Service would have made a profit in 2009.”
The AMA noted that businesses large and small and individuals across America have tightened their belts, cut their spending, and made painful choices due to accommodate challenging times.
“Now the Postal Service expects customers to pay the price for its refusing to do what its customers had to,” the AMA said. “For our organizations, the Postal Service’s unwillingness to do its part will mean the loss of thousands of additional jobs, further cuts to pay and benefits. This is an issue about investing for possible future growth or paying higher taxes in the form of higher postal rates. At this time of a shaky economic recovery, this is the functional equivalent of a tax increase on every American postal customer, whether individual or business. If this takes effect January 2, 2011, and American businesses and consumers will be spending more on postal services, there will be less money for investment, payrolls, and business growth.
“Punishing customers with higher prices is not the way to make the Postal Service solvent. In fact, without effective cost control, trying to make the Postal Service solvent through financial infusions will be like trying to fill a bucket with a hole in its bottom. The Postal Service will lurch from one financial crisis to the next. The American people will sooner or later have to pay, through higher taxes or higher prices.”
For further information, please visit www.affordablemailalliance.org
Click here for a copy of the Motion to Dismiss
USPS, NTIS To Provide Federal Agencies Expanded Information Services
WASHINGTON — The U.S. Postal Service and the National Technical Information Service (NTIS) have agreed to jointly provide fulfillment, information management services and customer maintenance to federal agencies to enable them to serve the needs of their departments.
According to a signed memorandum of understanding, NTIS will work directly with the Postal Service’s Stamp Fulfillment Services (SFS) located in Kansas City, MO. SFS manages a world–class fulfillment and inventory management operation in a unique climate–controlled underground environment. SFS can process more than 15,000 orders daily and maintains a state–of–the–art security system within the facility for warehousing, customer data maintenance and fulfillment opportunities.
The agreement, signed by the Postal Service’s Vice President for Government Relations Marie Therese Dominguez and NTIS Director Bruce Borzino, sets the stage for both organizations to assist other federal agencies with fulfillment, warehousing, storage and data management services.
“The Postal Service’s Stamp Fulfillment Service has great capacity and capabilities, not only for stamp customers but large retail customers, including the federal government,” said Dominguez. She also noted how the SFS staff filled over 43,000 preorders in a single day when the Adopt a Shelter Pet stamps went on sale in April. “This collaboration with NTIS is the first of what the Postal Service believes are many positive opportunities to come with government agencies for data warehousing and fulfillment.”
This interagency agreement is consistent with the March 2 announcement of the Postal Service’s Delivering the Future plan. Among other things, the plan calls for the creation of new opportunities to generate needed revenue that will allow the Postal Service to compete more aggressively and fairly in the marketplace.
NTIS Director Borzino noted SFS’ state–of–the–art security and distribution systems. “As such, SFS has the ability to augment NTIS’s own information delivery, e–commerce and order processing infrastructure in serving federal agency information processing, fulfillment and distribution needs,” Borzino said.
Located in Alexandria, VA, NTIS serves as the largest resource for government–funded scientific, technical, engineering and business–related technical reports available today, with 3 million publications covering 350 topics. It disseminates information in its collection to the public and provides fulfillment services for other government agencies.
USPS to Crowdsource Graphic Illustration for Season’s Greetings from Hawaii Packages
Prova.fm, an online crowdsourcing startup announced a design contest for the United States Postal Service in Hawaii. The Post Office recognizes the power of the crowd too
The United States Postal Service in Hawaii has selected the online community of designers at Prova.fm to crowdsource the design of a “Season’s Greetings from Hawaii” logo to be printed on the Hawaii Priority Mail Large Flat Rate Boxes. A new design contest via Prova’s online platform was created to satisfy the Post Office’s marketing, branding, and advertising needs.
Prova has built a community of skilled and emerging design talent to offer just such solutions for the business community. “Crowdsourcing is an expedient, cost effective, and often superior method of completing any kind of project, and especially where print or online designs are concerned;” said Prova Founder David Gash.
The United States Postal Service (USPS) in Honolulu approached Prova to engage the design community there with the project. The USPS needs to “inspire Postal Service customers to choose the Large Flat Rate Box for shipping packages worldwide”. USPS Retail Manager Nancy Wong had this to say about their selection of Prova:
“We liked Prova’s system because we’ll get a wider submission base with Prova, than simply getting ideas from our employees. You just put down what you want and designers from all over are going to be able to submit their designs.”
Prova takes advantage of virtually untapped skills and resources via the web. Tens of thousands of talented artists and designers can be engaged using Prova as a platform for assignments – as well as for promoting their work. Prova’s CEO and Founder had this to say about the contest; “Crowdsourcing is beginning to come into its own because of the advent and adaptation of digital technologies. We are obviously thrilled the digital design community has this opportunity to satisfy a tangible need of a global concern such as the USPS.”
USPS Reaching Out To E-tailers
Print Catalogs Deliver Digital Orders
Campaign Shows Online Retailers How to Go Beyond the Web to Double Sales
WASHINGTON — The U.S. Postal Service is reaching out to e-tailers with a campaign showcasing the power of catalogs with the potential to double online transactions and achieve revenue lift of over 100 percent by creating print extensions of their Internet shopping websites.
“Getting Started in Catalogs” is a USPS promotional campaign featuring a “Catalogs and e-tailing” instructional DVD and a live webinar series. The DVD features testimonials from widely recognized companies such as Dell and Zappo’s, who built their businesses into market leaders within their respective industries by adding catalogs to the marketing mix.
The first of three free webinars takes place July 20, with tutorials on catalog production and the smartest and most cost-efficient ways to produce a catalog. Additional webinars will be held July 28 and Aug. 24. Follow-up support from sales personnel with the Postal Service also is available.
“Putting a focused, attractive catalog in the hands of your customers has a unique ability to engage their attention, and prompts them to browse your site and place orders,” said Steve Hernandez, acting vice president, Sales. “For e-tailers looking to push their sales to the next level, catalogs are a proven medium for delivering transactions and enhancing customer loyalty.”
A market study by comScore shows that among visitors to retail websites, twice as many catalog recipients made a purchase as those who did not receive a catalog – more than doubling the online conversion rate. A revenue increase of 163 percent resulted from a comparison of purchases and money spent by catalog recipients versus those who did not receive a catalog in the comScore study, and 28 percent more items were ordered by catalog recipients.
Customers can learn more about growing their businesses through the use of catalogs, order a free DVD, and register to attend the free webinars at:http://www.usps.com/promotions/catalogs.htm.
Ordering the DVD and registering for the webinars also is available through a targeted direct mail campaign incorporating Business Reply Mail, along with Web ads appearing in online retailer publications.
Louisiana Man Pleads Guilty to Assaulting, Robbing Letter Carrier
Filed under: letter carriers, postal, postal news, press releases, usdoj
Man assaulted and robbed letter carrier of $26 while delivering mail
The U.S. Department of Justice’s U.S. Attorney’s office for Eastern District of Louisiana issued the following press release:
July 16, 2010
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
CHRISTOPHER ISAAC, age 20, of Marrero, Louisiana, pled guilty in federal court yesterday before U. S. District Judge Helen G. Berrigan to assault on a federal officer, announced U. S. Attorney Jim Letten.
According to court documents, ISAAC admitted that on February 12, 2010, he used a semi-automatic pistol to forcibly assault and rob a U. S. Postal Service letter carrier while the letter carrier was delivering mail at the Ridgefield Apartments in Marrero, Louisiana.
ISAAC faces a maximum term of imprisonment of twenty (20) years, a fine of $250,000 and three (3) years of supervised release following any term of imprisonment. Sentencing is set for October 27, 2010.
The case was investigated by the U. S. Postal Inspection Service and prosecuted by Assistant United States Attorney Loan “Mimi” Nguyen .