Postmaster General Jack Potter reiterated his call for expanding contract delivery of mail before a House panel Thursday.
“With delivery-point growth approaching two million new homes and businesses each year, it makes good business sense to examine the available options when preparing to serve new delivery areas,” he told the House Subcommittee on Federal Workforce, Postal Service and District of Columbia. “It could mean that some new deliveries would be served by more economical contact services.” But he stressed that, “the overwhelming majority of new delivery continues to be assigned to Postal Service carriers and that contract service represents less than 2% of the nation’s deliveries.”
He went on to assert that contract delivery would not cut into the work of USPS employees.
“Contract delivery would affect only a portion of new deliveries, not existing delivery already provided by Postal Service carriers,” he said. “Contract delivery expansion would not result in the layoff of any letter carriers.”
This is the second time in two months Potter has defended contract delivery before Congress.
In April, he told the Senate Subcommittee on federal financial management that the USPS needed to expand contract delivery in order to meet ratemaking requirements spelled out in the Postal Accountability and Enhancement Act passed last December.
“With postage rates linked to inflation under the new postal law, contracting out remains an effective and necessary tool to help us manage costs to achieve this mandate,” Potter said (Direct Newsline, April 20).
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