The U.S. Postal Service Board of Governors has asked President Bush and key Congressional leaders to make postal reform a top priority.
In a two-page letter to the President and Congressional leaders, including former House postal subcommittee chairman John McHugh (R-NY), postal governors said the prospect of a $2 billion loss by the USPS this fiscal year would lead to “a financial crisis that cannot be averted by better management alone.”
The BOG attributed the looming financial crisis to the 31-year-old Postal Reorganization Act (PRA) of 1970 that transformed the old Post Office Department into the self-sustaining USPS. The law, they said, is “hopelessly outdated” and needed to be overhauled to provide a long-term solution to the postal service’s mounting fiscal problems.
“We foresee rapidly rising rates and reduced service if legislative reform is not enacted promptly,” the governors said.
Urging both the President and key members of Congress to act swiftly, they pointed out that the existing statutory framework “does not provide practical and adaptable solutions to today’s rapidly changing and truly global communications environment.”
Stating that the entire mailing community “is focused on the need for postal change,” postal governors added that the General Accounting Office (GAO), the investigative arm of Congress, has also repeatedly called for the law to be changed.
One major change they said they would like to see would allow the USPS to change its rates faster to meet those of its competitors. According to the governors it takes 18 months for the USPS to prepare, litigate and implement rate changes while its competitors, such as United Parcel Service, Federal Express, and others “can change prices immediately.”
They also said the collective bargaining section of the law needed to be changed because most times it leads to compulsory arbitration and the placing of “some 80% of our costs in the hands of a third-party arbitrator with neither understanding of nor responsibility for our role and mission.”
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