National Association of Postal Supervisors Applauds Administration’s Budget Proposal
Filed under: NAPS, postal, postal news, press releases, usps, white house
The National Association of Postal Supervisors welcomed the news that the Obama administration’s FY 2012 budget proposal addresses some of the concerns of the financially struggling Postal Service. President Louis Atkins noted that the budget proposal addresses the requirement that the Postal Service pre-fund future postal retiree’s health benefits but does so with a much more reasonable payment plan.
Atkins believes that, “A viable Postal Service is critical to the entire infrastructure of commerce in the United States. A resolve that would place the Postal Service on sounder financial footing is something that all parties should endorse”.
“Our organization will be working closely with the leadership in the Congress to bring about legislation that will work for both the Postal Service and the American people,” Atkins added. NAPS has been in the forefront of providing information to the Congress about the necessity of maintaining six-day delivery and is heartened that the Obama administration saw fit to include this provision in the language of their proposed budget for FY 2012.
NAPS believes that the Postal Service cannot return to prosperity without the assistance of the Congress and support for the Administration’s budget proposals, or other alternatives that would relieve the budgetary problems. Without that assistance the Postal Service is left to do the only thing that it can do, cut service, eliminate jobs and close post offices.
At a time when the country is trying to get people back to work, it is also a good time for the Congress to help revamp the Postal Service in order to maintain the middle-class jobs that the Postal Service currently provides to its’ employees. This is not a time to be reducing public service jobs that are vital to both the commerce of the country and its’ citizens.
The Postal Service is also the largest employer of veterans in the country. At a time that many veterans are returning from active duty, the Postal Service should be an employer of choice for our returning veterans in need of a job. But, due to the budgetary problems, the Postal Service is not hiring and many positions that need to be filled remain vacant resulting in excessive overtime in some areas.
NALC: Proposed budget preserves six-day mail delivery and offers postal relief
The U.S. Postal Service received some good news from the Obama administration Feb. 14 when the White House released its proposed budget for the 2012 fiscal year.
“By proposing significant short-term financial help for the Postal Service in his budget, President Obama clearly stands with the NALC and our goal of getting the Service back on the right financial track,” NALC President Fredric V. Rolando said. “But we all need to keep one thing in mind—that this budget proposal is just that: a proposal.
“With a divided Congress, there’s little doubt that we face an uphill fight for real pre-funding reform,” he said. “But we believe that a strong Postal Service is a bipartisan policy.”
Obama’s proposed budget still calls for pre-funding future postal retiree health benefits as mandated by the 2006 Postal Accountability and Enhancement Act, but on a more reasonable payment schedule. It also calls for reducing the Postal Service’s overall pre-funding payment obligation for the 2011 fiscal year by $4 billion.
“These steps to provide USPS with the breathing room necessary to continue restructuring its operations without severe disruptions must be coupled with meaningful reforms to its business model to make USPS viable for the medium and long term,” the budget reads.
Another promising part of the 2012 budget proposal is the inclusion of a provision directing the Office of Personnel Management to refund the almost $7 billion surplus in the Postal Service’s Federal Employees Retirement System account over the next 30 years, beginning with a $550 million payment this year. While the NALC welcomes the administration’s recognition that the FERS surplus should be returned to the USPS, we believe this policy should be applied to the much bigger CSRS surplus (estimated to be between $55 billion and $75 billion) and that the funds should be returned much more quickly so that they can be used to cover the cost of the pre-funding payments.
Meanwhile, in a clear victory for letter carrier activism over the past year, the language preserving six-day delivery has once again been included in appropriations bills brought before Congress. In setting the amount for “revenue forgone” to cover the costs of free and reduced rate mail, the 2012 spending plan says payments will be made “provided that 6-day delivery and rural delivery of mail shall continue at not less than the 1983 level.”
“We continue to hit hard the message that six-day mail delivery is good for America, and our representatives are hearing us,” President Rolando said. “But real letter carrier activists understand that these kinds of victories are temporary, and that we need to keep spreading the six-day message for as long as the Postal Service presses for short-sighted service cuts.”
The president’s budget also addresses reforms of the Federal Employee Compensation Act and calls for eliminating small annual payments to the Postal Service for past revenue forgone appropriations that were not paid to cover the cost of fee mail to the blind. NALC is studying the administration’s FECA proposal and will report full details in the days and weeks ahead, and we will oppose the cut in revenue forgone payments.
source: National Association Of Letter Carriers
White House Budget Outlines Repayment To USPS For FERS Overcharges..But
The White House released the 2012 budget today. In the budget it proposes to reimburse USPS for $6.9 billion in overcharges for FERS retirees. But the repayment is spread over 30 years, including $550 million in 2011.
Here is the summary from the White House 2012 Budget outlining provisions for USPS:
The Administration recognizes the enormous value of the Postal Service to the Nation’s commerce and communications, as well as the urgent need for reform to ensure the future viability of USPS. Therefore, the Budget proposes specific short-term financial relief measures, grounded in principles of fiscal responsibility as well as sound financial management, and the Administration will work with the Congress and postal stakeholders to secure necessary reforms. As to the structure of relief, the Budget would improve USPS financial condition by returning to USPS surplus amounts it has paid into its OPM account for its share of Federal Employee Retirement System costs. OPM has determined this surplus is approximately $6.9 billion, which would be paid back to USPS over 30 years, including an estimated $550 million in 2011. Secondly, the Budget proposes to restructure USPS retiree health benefits payments that were specified by the 2006 Postal Act. This change would still prudently pre-fund retiree liabilities, but on an accruing cost basis rather than the arbitrary amounts fixed in current law, which do not allow for the dramatic shifts in demand or workforce size that USPS has experienced in recent years. This restructuring and near-term deferral would provide USPS with $4 billion in temporary financial relief in 2011. Over the 2011 to 2021 budget period this proposal has an estimated deficit effect of $5 billion. See the Office of Personnel Management section of this Appendix for more information on this proposal.
These steps to provide USPS with the breathing room necessary to continue restructuring its operations without severe disruptions must be coupled with meaningful reforms to its business model to make USPS viable for the medium- and long-term. Postal volumes have dropped precipitously in the last few years due to the economic crisis and longer-run shifts in communication technologies and use shifts that have created new challenges even as they propel innovation and revolutionize our economy. The Postal Service needs the flexibility to adapt to these changes and higher public expectations for customer service. To that end, the Administration’s discussions with the Congress and others will be guided by the goals of allowing the Postal Service to: 1) Realign its infrastructure, facilities, processing and delivery systems to continuously improve efficiency; 2) Promote an adaptive, 21st Century workforce; and 3) Accelerate value creation and enhance service to the public while respecting fair competition in the marketplace.
And from the OPM:
POSTAL SERVICE RETIREE HEALTH BENEFITS FUND
As a result of this health benefits financing system, beginning in 2017, the Postal Service will cease to pay annual premium costs for its post-1971 current annuitants directly to the Employees and Retired Employees Health Benefits Fund. Instead, these premium payments will be paid from amounts that the Postal
Service remits to this fund. Payments for a proportion of the premium costs of Postal Service annuitants’ pre-1971 service would continue to be paid by the General Fund of the Treasury through the Government Payment for Annuitants, Employees Health Benefits account.
The Budget proposes to shift how the Postal Service (USPS) pre-funds its retiree health benefits unfunded liability (UFL). Under current law, from 2011 to 2016, USPS must make a stream of payments set in statute toward paying down retiree health benefit unfunded liabilities, as well as pay annual premiums for current retirees. Also under current law, starting in 2017, USPS must pay the per capita accruing costs (or normal cost) to fund future retiree health benefits of current employees and a 40-year amortization of the remaining UFL for current retirees.
Under the proposal, starting in 2011, USPS would pay the normal costs for the future retiree health benefits of current employees and also a stream of payments associated with paying down the remaining UFL for current retirees. Further, USPS would be provided temporary financial relief as the 2011 payment would be adjusted so that USPS would pay $4 billion less than what it would have paid to this Fund under current law. USPS would make up this $4 billion payment to the Fund by paying larger amounts in future years. Beginning in 2022, USPS would pay the remaining UFL, amortized over 40 year period.
This proposal provides the following benefits to USPS: 1) USPS would be provided temporary financial relief in the form of a lower payment in 2011; 2) The new calculations of normal cost and UFL are based on new actuarial assumptions that reflect that USPS has fewer employees than in 2006, when the prefunding mechanism was originally adopted—therefore the actual annual payments for the normal costs would be reset each year based on the number of USPS employees; 3) This Fund would pay the premiums for current USPS retirees now, rather than starting in 2017—this accelerates what would have occurred anyway in 2017 under current law. See the Postal Service section of this Appendix for further information on this proposal.
Obama Proposes 2-Year Pay Freeze For All Civilian Federal Employees
The White House has issued the following “Fact Sheet: Cutting the Deficit by Freezing Federal Employee Pay”
Because of the irresponsibility of the past decade, the President inherited a $1.3 trillion projected deficit upon taking office and an economic crisis that threatened to put the nation into a second Great Depression. He moved quickly to get the economy moving again. Now, the economy is growing, and we have gained private sector jobs for the past 10 months. But families and businesses are still hurting, and our top priority is making sure that we are doing everything we can to help boost economic growth and spur job creation.
Now, we need to turn our attention to addressing the massive deficits we inherited and the unsustainable fiscal course that we are on. Doing so will take some very tough choices. Just as families and businesses around the nation have tightened their belts so must their government. That must be done in a targeted way that focuses our investments in what works and in what will lay the foundation for job creation and economic growth for years to come while cutting back elsewhere in our budget.
That is why the President has decided to propose a freeze in civilian pay for federal employees for two years, 2011 and 2012.
* This two-year pay freeze will save $2 billion for the remainder of FY 2011, $28 billion over the next five years, and more than $60 billion over the next 10 years.
* It will apply to all civilian federal employees, including those in various alternative pay plans and those working at the Department of Defense – but not military personnel.
This was a decision that was not made lightly. From the doctors and nurses who care for our veterans to the scientists searching for better treatments and cures, the men and women who care for our national parks, and the thousands who make sure that the Social Security check is in the mail and that students get their scholarships, federal workers serve their fellow Americans. They do so often with great sacrifice and motivated by a patriotic love for their country. This freeze is not to punish federal workers or to disrespect the work that they do. It is the first of many actions we will take in the upcoming budget to put our nation on sound fiscal footing – which will ask for some sacrifice from us all.
This move also is another step in what the Administration has done as part of its Accountable Government Initiative to cut costs, save taxpayer dollars and do more with less in the federal government:
* Upon taking office, the President froze salaries for all senior White House officials; in last year’s budget, he proposed to extend this freeze to other top political appointees; and he eliminated bonuses for all political appointees.
* The President directed agencies to dispose of excess real estate to save $8 billion over the next two years.
* The President set an aggressive goal of reducing improper payments by $50 billion by the end of 2012.
* In each of his budgets, the President put forward approximately $20 billion in terminations and reductions, encompassing more than 120 programs all of which have strong supporters.
* The President put forward more than $1 trillion in deficit reduction in his 2011 budget, including a three-year freeze in non-security spending – which will bring non-security discretionary spending to its lowest level as a share of the economy in 50 years.
Ultimately, reining in our deficits will take tough decisions and sacrifices made by us all. We look forward to working with both sides on Capitol Hill over the next several months to forge a commonsense deficit reduction strategy that will rein in our deficits, keep our economy growing, and lay the foundation for American competitiveness for years to come.
Postal Service Charts Course for Sustainable Future
Filed under: postal, postal news, press releases, usps, white house
White House Posts USPS Strategic Sustainability Performance Plan
WASHINGTON — The U.S. Postal Service’s sustainability goals and plans were posted by the White House today on its new website, whitehouse.gov/administration/eop/ceq. The website presents federal government goals for clean energy, reducing waste and greenhouse gas reduction. The Postal Service’s Strategic Sustainability Performance Plan joins other agency plans to help reach the Obama Administration’s green goals.
“The Postal Service voluntarily worked with 55 other federal agencies to publicly release our plans to achieve a sustainable future,” said Sam Pulcrano, vice president, Sustainability. “The Postal Service is committed to building on our history of green innovation and social responsibility. This plan is another example of our sustainability leadership role.”
With a large national presence and more than 33,000 facilities, the Postal Service takes steps daily to minimize its environmental impact. By achieving the goals outlined in its Strategic Sustainability Performance Plan, the Postal Service maximizes resources, reduces costs, and benefits its employees, customers and the communities it serves.
The USPS Strategic Sustainability Performance Plan describes the agency’s goals and targets, and summarizes implementation initiatives. The Postal Service’s green practices and successes are widely recognized, including its recycling and mail-back programs, electric and alternative fuel-powered vehicles and Cradle to Cradle Certified™ mailing and shipping supplies.
The plan outlines a number of milestones:
“The Postal Service is making progress in achieving its sustainability goals and continues to lay a solid foundation for a sustainable future for our organization, our employees and our customers,” said Pulcrano.
The Postal Service has won more than 75 environmental awards, including 40 White House Closing the Circle, 10 Environmental Protection Agency WasteWise Partner of the Year, Climate Action Champion, Direct Marketing Association Green Echo, and the Postal Technology International Environmental Achievement of the Year, 2009.
For more information about the USPS Strategic Sustainability Performance Plan, visit usps.com/green and the green newsroom.
Six Cities To Train Mail Carriers To Deliver Anti-Terror Drugs
Filed under: anthrax, letter carriers, postal, postal news, usps, white house
WASHINGTON — The Postal Service is ready to deliver lifesaving drugs to about a quarter of the residents of Minneapolis-St. Paul, the only metropolitan area in the nation where letter carriers have been trained to dispense medication after a large-scale terrorist attack involving biological weapons.
Six years after the government began exploring the idea of using postal workers as rapid-response medicine dispensers and eight months after President Obama ordered government agencies to develop a plan to do so, efforts are underway in six cities to train workers to deliver the drugs needed to counter anthrax or other potentially deadly agents, the White House says.
The White House won’t name the six cities, and Department of Homeland Security spokeswoman Amy Kudwa says she can’t talk about whether more cities are interested in the voluntary program.
The projected cost to set up the program and train postal workers: $1 million per city, according to the White House.
Full story: USA Today- 6 cities to train mail carriers to dispense anti-terror drugs
PMG Potter’s Response To White House On Pilot Test For Five-Day Delivery
Excerpts from PMG John Potter letter regarding Pilot test on Five-Day Delivery:
From an operational standpoint a pilot test conducted on a regional basis would increase some of our costs in the short term. For example, we either would have to make manual changes to mail processing sorting schemes and payroll or utilize information technology to program such changes for a limited time or geographic area. We believe that our information technology programming changes, estimated to cost $10 million-$12 million for a national, full-time implementation, would grow significantly to accommodate a test, as would administrative costs if we decided to forego programming changes in favor of performing manual processing for the defined test period. We also would have to communicate the pilot’s parameters to the public and employees. During such a test we would be unable to make the permanent, necessary changes to our delivery workforce, transportation networks, and mail processing operations that would yield the projected $3.1 billion savings. The largest financial impact of a pilot would be the fact that many career employees in the pilot area would have to be paid not to work or be relocated, white many of our non-career and part-time employees would see their wages reduced or eliminated. Any savings in wages that the Postal Service would realize during the test would immediately disappear at the test’s conclusion.
It may be helpful for me to offer a distinct example of the internal challenges that a test would present. In City Letter Carrier operations, full -time, regular City Carriers generally are assigned to a single delivery route that they service five days per week. These Carriers are scheduled to have Sunday off as well as one other day of the week. A category of full-time Carriers, known as Carrier Technicians. also are scheduled to work five days per week; but instead of servicing the same route each day, they cover the day off- and the route–of five different carriers. The five-day delivery proposal anticipates the reduction of approximately 25,000 full-time City Carrier assignments and $2.2 billion in annual savings in City Carrier operations. The savings are generated primarily by the fact that under a five-day delivery model, regular Carriers assigned to a single route would have Saturday and Sunday off, eliminating the need for the Carrier Technician and Relief Carrier assignments. We plan to transition full-time Carrier Technician assignments into Carrier positions (that cover a single route) that become available through attrition (a significant percentage of our current workforce is eligible for retirement between now and 2014). Under a pilot test we would be unable to carry out this Carrier alignment, and during the test itself, we would have a surplus of Letter Carriers for whom we would have to find productive work within their craft, and if unsuccessful, pay them to perform no work because our contract with the National Association of Letter Carriers guarantees full-time, regular Carriers a 40-hour work week. Under our national proposal for five-day delivery we Intend to preserve the employment of our career City Carriers.
read letter from Postmaster General John Potter submitted to the Postal Regulatory Commission
White House Withdraws Nomination of Paul Steven Miller to USPS Board of Governors
On June 8, 2010 the White House announced the withdrawal of the nomination of Paul Steven Miller to the USPS Board of Governors. There was no explanation given for this withdrawal of nomination. Miller was nominated on January 29, 2010 “for a term expiring December 8, 2016, vice Carolyn L. Gallagher, term expired.”
According to the January 29, 2010 press releases :
Paul Steven Miller is the Henry M. Jackson Professor of Law at the University of Washington School of Law who is an expert in workplace and employment law. He has spent his career moving between academia, public service, and law practice. Most recently, Professor Miller spent the first nine months of the Obama Administration as a Special Assistant to the President in The White House. Prior to joining the University of Washington faculty in 2004, Professor Miller had been one of the longest serving commissioners of the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC), the federal agency which enforces employment discrimination laws. He has also served in The White House as Liaison to the Disability Community and as Deputy Director of the U.S. Office of Consumer Affairs during the Clinton Administration. Earlier in his career, Professor Miller was the Director of Litigation for the Western Law Center for Disability Rights and a lawyer at the Los Angeles law firm of Manatt Phelps and Phillips. He is a graduate of the University of Pennsylvania, cum laude, and the Harvard Law School.
On June 8, 2010 the White House announced:
WITHDRAWAL SENT TO THE SENATE:
Paul Steven Miller, of Washington, to be a Governor of the United States Postal Service for a term expiring December 8, 2016, vice Carolyn L. Gallagher, term expired, which was sent to the Senate on February 1, 2010.
Obama Budget Backs Six-Day Delivery
President Obama’s fiscal 2011 budget proposal requires the continuation of six-day delivery by the Postal Service. The administration also promises to work with postal unions and other stakeholders to keep the Postal Service strong for years to come. In setting the amount for “revenue forgone” to cover the costs of free and reduced rate mail, the spending plan says payments will be made “provided that 6-day delivery and rural delivery of mail shall continue at not less than the 1983 level….” Looking to the future, the proposal, submitted to Congress on February 1, states, “The Administration will work with the Postal Service, its employee unions, the Congress, and other stakeholders to make sure the Postal Service (remains) a pillar of the American economy and a vital public resource through the current crisis and over the long haul.” Language in a separate section, however, proposes changes in the Federal Employees Compensation Act (FECA) that could be problematic. The NALC is investigating those proposals and will act to protect letter carriers’ interests. See the USPS section of the budget, with key sections highlighted
The Postal Service’s presentation of its 5-day delivery proposal appears to be on a fast track for presentation to the Postal Regulatory Commission. In announcing the MTAC agenda, the Postal Service has included a 90 minute briefing on 5-day a week delivery on February 17. The Postal Service will repeat this presentation on the web four additional times in February.
source: NALC
http://www.nalc.org/images/FY2011AdminBudgetProposalUSPS.pdf
NALC and Organized Labor Succeed In Obtaining Critical Improvements To Health Reform Bill
NALC and Organized Labor Succeed In Obtaining Critical Improvements
To Congressional Health Reform Bill
Rolando Says Legislation Moving Through Congress
Provides ‘Significant Progress’ for American Workers
The NALC and much of the labor movement, led by AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka,have been successful in negotiating an agreement with the Obama administration and congressional leaders to significantly improve the financing provisions of pending health care reform legislation that will expand coverage to 30–35 million Americans who today lack health insurance.
The measure would also reform the discriminatory practices of the private health insurance industry, improve both Medicare and Medicare Part D, and make a serious attempt to rein in skyrocketing health care costs. Despite its $90 billion-a-year price tag, the reform would reduce the federal budget deficit while protecting the Federal Employees Health Benefit Program (FEHBP), which provides health insurance for NALC members and their families.
Major issues still remain to be resolved between the House and Senate versions of the legislation, but a vote on final passage could come before President Obama’s State of the Union message in February.
“Although this compromise legislation is disappointing to those of us who support a single-payer system or a strong public insurance option, it nevertheless represents significant progress for working Americans,” said NALC President Fred Rolando. “The bill will benefit letter carriers specifically by covering the uninsured members of their families and helping to keep the cost of health care from soaring out of control.”
The most contentious sticking point for NALC and the labor movement in general concerned a proposed excise tax on high-cost health plans slated to begin in 2013.
Originally targeted at family plans costing more than $13,000 per year (and self-only plans costing more than $6,500), this 40 percent levy on health plans was included in the Senate bill as a way to finance reform and to discourage excessive spending on health care.But it threatened to unfairly tax union health plans that were costly—not because of overly generous benefits, but because of demographic and geographical factors.
Thanks to relentless lobbying by NALC and other unions, the tax thresholds were increased first to $23,000 and $8,500 in the Senate and then to $24,000 and $8,900 as a result of the White House agreement reached by the AFL-CIO on January 14. Those thresholds will also be adjusted upwards to account for age and gender differences and to account for any surge in health care inflation between now and 2013. Furthermore, dental and vision coverage will no longer be counted against the threshold, effectively raising the levels by as much as an additional $2,000. In addition, the AFL-CIO deal secured an exemption for collectively bargained health plans through 2017; it was not clear whether the exemption would cover bargaining unit postal employees with FEHHBP plans.
“We had hoped to get rid of the excise tax altogether,” Rolando acknowledged, “but since the average cost of FEHBP plans ($13,000 for family and $6,900 for self-only) falls far below the new thresholds, our plans will not be taxed for the foreseeable future.”
“We are still concerned that the indexing of the thresholds is inadequate,” he added,“since health care premiums have traditionally risen much faster than inflation and FEHBP plans like the NALC HBP could be hit by the tax sometime in the next decade.”
Under the law, the thresholds for the tax will rise by the increase in the Consumer Price Index plus 1 percentage point. “Fortunately, we will have 10 years to fix the indexing provisions of the law or repeal the tax altogether,” Rolando said.
source: NALC