The Postal Rate Commission last week endorsed a proposal by the U.S. Postal Service to correct an error in its nonprofit periodical rate schedule and recommended its adoption by the postal service’s Board of Governors.
There was no immediate response from postal officials or any indication of when the postal governors, scheduled to meet on July 12 and 13, would act on the PRC’s recommendation.
The error was discovered in January shortly after nonprofit rates rose by an average of 18%. It gives commercial publishers higher automation discounts for the non-advertising content of their publications over those of nonprofit mailers. This forces nonprofit mailers, when sending to their members publications without advertisements, to pay rates higher than those for commercial mailings.
The Alliance of Nonprofit Mailers and the National Federation of Nonprofits estimated the error cost as much as several thousand dollars in extra postage between Jan. 10, when rates went up, and April 9 when the USPS asked the PRC to support its plan to correct the error and refund any excess postage paid after April 9.
Efforts by both groups to make the refund program retroactive to Jan. 10 were rebuffed by the PRC, which said that was up to postal governors.
Lee Cassidy, the federation’s executive director, said he was “greatly upset with the PRC’s recommendation because they didn’t even say that while we may not have the authority to recommend making the refund program retroactive to January 10 we think it is the right thing to do.”
He added that he’s sending a letter to BOG chairman Einar V. Dyhrkopp reminding him that “regardless of the freedom the BOG has under the law, the right thing to do is to make the refunds available for any mailing made after January 10.”
Dyhrkopp could not be reached for comment at deadline.
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