The U.S. Postal Service will officially seek the Postal Rate Commission's support for a summer 2002 rate increase of 8.7% during the week of Sept. 24.
The case is expected to be filed either Sept. 24 or Sept. 25 instead of the original plan of Sept. 28, according to both Jerry Cerasale, the Direct Marketing Association's senior vice president, government affairs, and David Weaver, president of the Mailing & Fulfillment Service Association.
"It would be consistent with how they [postal officials] do things," Weaver said. If the case is filed that week it will be before the board's next regular monthly meeting.
There was no immediate comment from postal officials as to when they planned to file the rate case with the PRC.
USPS was authorized by the Board of Govenors to file the case last Tuesday just before the board's regular monthly meeting was cut short because of the terrorists attacks on The World Trade Center in New York and the Pentagon in Washington.
With the meeting cut short postal officials did not go into detail about the proposed rate increase. They only said that they were proposing a 7.3% increase in Standard (advertising) Mail rates; a 10% hike in periodical rates; a 13.5% rise in Priority Mail rates; a 9.7% boost in Express mail rates and an 8.2% increase in first class rates, raising the price of a first class stamp by 3 cents to 37 cents.
"Without a breakdown below those percentages, we all assume that Standard Mail will go up by an average of 7.3% and that flat-shaped Standard Mail will be higher, probably much closer to the 10% increase proposed for periodicals," Cerasale said.
Weaver added that mailers, especially bulk mailers "should be concerned" about the gap in the proposed rate case percentages and how it would affect their mailing costs coming so soon after two back-to-back rate increases totaling 6%.
