GovernmentExecutive.com

The U.S. Postal Service will be forced to seek a double-digit rate increase if overhaul legislation is not passed soon, Postmaster General Jack Potter said Monday.

Potter urged the thousands of mailing industry employees at the National Postal Forum to "get up to Capitol Hill" and tell their representatives today that "it's important to bring a close to this legislative process."

The postal bill has passed the House Government Reform and Judiciary committees, as well as the the Senate Governmental Affairs Committee, but it has not been scheduled for a floor vote in either chamber.

Potter reiterated his pledge to hold rates stable until 2006, but said swift passage of the bill is critical for the agency's financial planning, since it takes about 16 months for a rate increase to go into effect.

The legislation, which has been in the works for about six years, would transfer retirement costs to the Treasury Department, freeing up revenue for the agency. It would also give the Postal Service more authority to set its own rates.

"The law has to be changed," said David Fineman, chairman of the Postal Service board of governors. "The ratemaking process makes no sense, our ability to compensate our executives makes no sense." He said the bill could "very well be voted on in the next few weeks."

Fineman said in an interview that even if no vote is held this year, the legislation has "a very, very good chance of being passed by the middle of March" and would significantly lessen the need for a rate increase request.

Although the bill has bipartisan support, it faces major scheduling obstacles while Congress is dealing with must-pass bills. The chairmen of the Senate and House Budget committees have expressed concern over the bill's cost, Fineman said, although he contended the legislation ultimately will be deficit-neutral.

COMMENTS

• Why won't the post office deliver packages to the homes of soldiers? I have mailed packages home from both Afghanistan and Iraq and had the Post Office leave my wife a note saying she must "pick up" the packages. The packages met both the size and weight requirements for home delivery, yet the Post Office refused to deliver the packages. Soldiers do not have any other mail option. Why won't someone force the post office to do what they were paid to do? Robert Snowder Posted March 15, 2008 12:37 AM
• What do you do with Postal employees who refuse to deliver mail to an address that has been in existence for 54 years, claiming that Box A, Box B etc. are not valid and return mail to sender? The PO is the one who changed the address from a RR# and Box # and now say you have to go to the Tax Assessor, who sends you to the Mapping Department, who sends you to the Planning Department, who sends you to the Building Inspector who issues permits - not able to go there yet, because they closed for the day. Apparently some Postal workers "take the word" of a clerk in the Assessor's Office that an address is no good. It is very strange that THEY (the Assessor) have sent mail to that same address that some bow-dunk clerk is citing as invalid. The power and control mechanism of individual postal employees is getting out-of-hand and someone needs to step up to the plate and deal with our postal problems - no wonder the prices for stamps keep going up, they are propagating a batch of bozo's who get paid good money to be unprofessional clowns. When is accountability going to be reversed, you can bet the IRS does not seem to have a problem making US citizens accountable. Is America on the road to being a postal system like some unmentionable foreign countries, where you can’t even file a claim for fear of reprisal? If the Postmaster General would clean some clocks - he would not need more people, just keep the ones who really want a job and want to work for a living. Warrenette Dailey Posted November 1, 2007 10:35 PM
• How can the postal system justify a raise? In the southern most part of Texas the postman drives to the mail box, deposits mail, leaves packages on the ground or on top of the mail box, and won't get out of his little truck to deliver packages to our business door which is just a few feet from the box. Residents are expected to travel to the post office to pick up packages, mail man doesn't even deliver packages to the private sector. Outrageous in my book. GovExec.com reader Posted October 21, 2004 11:21 AM