Two key lawmakers overseeing the U.S. Postal Service said they do not support the cash-strapped agency's plan to cut Saturday mail deliveries in hopes of saving more than $3 billion.
"While I understand the seriousness of the Postal Service's fiscal issues, I remain supportive of a six-day delivery schedule," said House Financial Services Appropriations Subcommittee Chairman Jose Serrano, D-N.Y., whose panel has purview over the Postal Service. "I will be in conversations in coming weeks with the senior postal leadership and the postal unions in an effort to avoid service cuts."
House Oversight and Government Reform Federal Workforce Subcommittee ranking member Jason Chaffetz, R-Utah, echoed that sentiment and said he plans to introduce legislation to eliminate only 12 days of mail delivery per year.
"I don't think it's good for business to eliminate all Saturday deliveries," Chaffetz said. "I don't think doing it before Mother's Day or Christmas is a good idea. There's probably one day a month that you could carve out of the schedule that nobody would miss."
A spokesman for the Postal Service said it would like to take a very close look at Chaffetz's legislation when he introduces it.
Regardless of its fix, the Postal Service has a rough road for its plan to streamline services in an effort to reduce its projected shortfall of $238 billion during the next decade.
Last week, the Postal Service submitted a five-day delivery proposal to the Postal Regulatory Commission that it says would save $3.1 billion annually, but Congress must sign off on the change. Appropriations bills that provide Postal Service funding have contained language every year requiring the Postal Service to maintain six-day-a-week deliveries, and the provision would have to be eliminated in the fiscal 2011 measure for service cuts to be made next year.
American Postal Workers Union President William Burrus said last week that he sides with Chaffetz in opposing elimination of Saturday deliveries, but added he does not think eliminating 12 days is any better.
"I don't know how he would be able to identify 12 days a year with a congressman's background," Burrus said. "I have 53 years of experience with the Postal Service and I just don't know how you would pick a day like July 17, for example, as being a light day."
Burrus said there is no way to judge which day would be a good one to declare a postal holiday because mail is unpredictable.
"It's not you and I paying the electric bill," he said. "If Macy's is going to have a big sale and put in a million pieces, we can't predict that."
Chaffetz said he is concerned that if the Postal Service cuts Saturday deliveries, it could end up hurting itself in the long run by creating an opening for private delivery companies. "You have got to serve your customers, or somebody else will come in and do it for you," he said.
Chaffetz said the Postal Service needs to find ways to cut costs while maintaining core services.
"The challenge for the Postal Service is to become more relevant to people's lives," he said. "They have been cutting back ... and I applaud them for that. The Postal Service is also one of the few things highlighted in [the] U.S. Constitution. They've got to figure out ways to cut and make it more relevant."