The U.S. Postal Service continues to lower its forecasted loss for 2002. It will likely finish the year with a loss well below $1 billion,” Postmaster General Jack Potter told the National Postal Forum Monday in Boston.
That figure is down from $1.2 billion, less than a month ago.
“We’re really pleased that the Postal Service has been able to report this but it was helped by having the rate increase go into effect on June 30 rather than now,” said Jerry Cerasale, Direct Marketing Association senior vice president of government affairs.
Reiterating a promise he made at the last postal forum earlier this year, Potter said in a statement that there will be “no general rate increase until well into 2004.”
Potter praised postal managers and employees for helping control expenses.
“Our employees and managers held the line on costs,” said Potter. “They bettered our budget forecast by some $400 million.
Moving forward, Potter said the USPS was going to keep working with the Postal Rate Commission to try and implement negotiated service agreements with large mailers and phased rates. The latter, a plan under which postal rates would be raised by small amounts each year rather than all at once, is not necessarily endorsed by all mailers.
“When you’re talking about phased rates, we’d like to see exactly what they are and what they’re based on,” Cerasale said.
Likewise, Bob McLean, executive director of the Mailers Council was reserving judgment on the idea of phased rates but noted that membership was appalled at the idea of phased rate increases proposed by the USPS last spring.
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