OMB Responds to Rural Letter Carriers Petition To Save 6 Day Delivery
Official Office of Management and Budget Response to Preserve 6 Day Mail Delivery
A Balanced Approach to Reforming the Postal Service
Thank you for signing a petition about the U.S. Postal Service. We appreciate your participation in the We the People platform on WhiteHouse.gov and your concerns about the U.S. Postal Service (USPS) in a challenging economy. The Postal Service is vital to the Nation’s commerce and communications, which is why we must act quickly to make the changes necessary to ensure its viability for years to come.
Postal volumes have dropped precipitously in recent years due to longer-run shifts in communication technologies and other economic factors. As a result, USPS accrued losses of $8.5 billion in 2010, and faced financial insolvency on September 30th. Without reform it is forecast to sustain greater losses this year and next.
However, the Postal Service needs more than just short term financial relief at this time; it needs a comprehensive plan for reform to ensure that it can be flexible and competitive in a changing marketplace. There are multiple ways to provide relief and reform, but the Administration’s proposal in The President’s Plan for Economic Growth and Job Creation [PDF] represents a balanced approach for postal workers, USPS, consumers, and taxpayers.
More specifically, the proposal includes a set of near-term financial relief measures that will provide the Postal Service with the time necessary to restructure its operations and take advantage of flexibilities in the proposal, such as the ability to cooperate with state and local governments and modest pricing flexibility.
In the longer term, we are proposing to help the Postal Service reduce its excessive operating costs by providing the flexibility to gradually move to 5-day delivery, beginning in 2013. Under USPS’ plan for how it would use this authority, post offices would still remain open on Saturdays, Express Mail deliveries would still be made 7 days a week, post office box deliveries would still be made on Saturdays, and USPS would continue to make Saturday deliveries in the busy weeks leading up to the winter Holidays. These and other cost structuring actions will ensure that the Postal Service remains viable for the medium- and longer-term.
We believe USPS’ financial situation demands such reforms and the Administration’s package includes provisions to reduce the impact for USPS workers and customers. We share petitioners’ concern for the health and viability of the USPS and developed this plan with the best interest of this vital institution in mind.
As we work to get our Nation back on a sustainable fiscal path, the Administration is making tough choices across the Federal government and asking everyone to do their fair share. These shared sacrifices are not easy, but together with investments in our economic growth and job creation [PDF], they will make us stronger and more competitive for the future.
Dana Hyde is Associate Director for General Government Programs, Office of Management and Budget
PostCom: White House pressuring Congress to insert postal legislation into Super Committee package
Filed under: Congress, politics, postal, postal news, usps, white house
From Postcom
“Word has it that the authorizers in both the Senate and the House are under pressure from the White House – and even from elements of their own Leaderships – to provide a package of postal legislation that can be inserted into the Super Committee package that is now being negotiated – including the President’s proposal to enact the exigency rate increase”
PostCom: Postal News and Information from Around the World
Video: APWU Members Demonstrate At White House
A protest on March 7th 2011 at the White House ‘Regarding the Protection of the United States Postal Service’ organized by active and retired APWU rank and file membership.
In response to APWU President Guffey’s call for help, Rank and File Members of the American Postal Workers Union demonstrated in front of the White House about CSRS and FERS Pension and Health benefits over funding. Correction of the funding formula and return of overpayments ($75 Billion+) would help to make the USPS fiscally sound, saving jobs and mail service. The USPS is not supported or funded by taxes and the current Obama administration proposes, as part of their overall budget package, “relief” for the USPS by taxpayer dollars.
The rally was also in support of the public sector unions who recently came under assault by politicians concerning their collective bargaining rights.
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.
APWU: White House Budget Recognizes Seriousness of USPS Crisis
Proposals Face an Uphill Battle
President Obama’s proposed budget for Fiscal Year 2012, which was released Feb. 14, “recognizes the seriousness of the Postal Service’s financial condition and proposes beginning steps to address it,” APWU President Cliff Guffey said.
The White House budget proposal would return to the Postal Service $6.9 billion the agency overpaid to the Federal Employees Retirement System (FERS). The refund would be made over a 30-year period, resulting in payments of approximately $500 million annually, beginning this year.
In addition, the president’s budget would reduce the USPS obligation to pre-fund retiree healthcare benefits by $4 billion for Fiscal Year 2011. Under current law, a payment of $5.5 billion is due by Sept. 30, and the USPS has said it may have to default.
The administration is also proposing to restructure future pre-funding payments, which have been the primary cause of the Postal Service’s financial crisis. The requirement to pre-fund the healthcare benefits of future retirees was mandated by the Postal Accountability and Enhancement Act of 2006, and is unique to the Postal Service.
A Long Road Ahead
“Unfortunately, the White House budget is simply a proposal,” Guffey noted. “The Republican majority in the House of Representatives will offer its own budget, which is expected to be very different. So, addressing the causes of the Postal Service’s financial crisis must continue to top our legislative agenda.
“We look forward to working with the administration and Congress to strengthen the USPS so that it can continue to serve the American people,” he said.
The budget also endorses giving the Postal Service flexibility to adapt to changes in communication technology and customer expectations for better service. The proposal says,
“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, 21 st Century workforce; and 3) Accelerate value creation and enhance service to the public while respecting fair competition in the marketplace.”
“We will monitor specific proposals on realignment and the workforce as they take shape and respond appropriately,” Guffey said.
The budget proposal includes provisions requiring the USPS to continue six-day mail delivery, and to maintain rural delivery “at not less than the 1983 level.”
It omits any reference to USPS overpayments to the Civil Service Retirement System (CSRS), which independent actuaries have estimated to be between $55 billion and $75 billion.
The budget also recommends changes to Office of Workers Compensation Program benefits. The APWU is continuing to analyze these proposals, which would apply to all federal employees. In addition, the budget would terminate annual appropriations that reimburse the USPS for lost revenue from legislatively-mandated reduced postage rates for non-profit mailers, such as free matter for the blind.
Click here to view excerpts of the president’s proposed 2012 budget that affect the Postal Service. Click here to view or download the full FY 2012 proposal.
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
Senator Carper On Budget: More Needs To Be Done To Address USPS’ Long-term Fiscal Problems
to address the Postal Service’s massive overpayments to the older Civil Service Retirement System (CSRS)
WASHINGTON – Today, Sen. Tom Carper (D-Del.), chairman of the Senate subcommittee overseeing the U.S. Postal Service, released the following statement responding to postal reform measures in President Obama’s 2012 budget proposal:
“I welcome the Administration’s engagement in the effort to stabilize the Postal Service’s precarious financial situation. The President’s proposal to reduce the Postal Service’s retiree health care payment due this year and to refund, over a period of time, nearly 7 billion dollars in over payments to the Federal Employees Retirement System, is an important first step. However, more clearly needs to be done in order to address the Postal Service’s long term fiscal problems. We need to address the Postal Service’s massive overpayments to the older Civil Service Retirement System. We also need to make sure that the Postal Service has the resources it needs to meet its future retiree health care obligations. Putting the Postal Service back on stronger financial footing is something I’ve been trying to do for a long time now, and I plan to reintroduce comprehensive postal reform to enact these necessary changes. I hope my colleagues and the Administration will join me in pushing for this much needed reform so we can prevent the Postal Service from going broke by the end of the year.”
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.
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.