USPS To Update Rate Case Financial Data
The Postal Rate Commission has ordered the U.S. Postal Service to update the two-year-old financial data it used to support next year’s proposed rate case by July 7.
The order comes three months after the PRC slammed the USPS for asking it to endorse a proposed January 2001 rate increase averaging 6.4% based on data from fiscal 1998 instead of fiscal 1999. In 1999 the USPS posted its fourth consecutive surplus.
Although the PRC noted that the USPS had been providing updated data in dribs in drabs in recent weeks, it said enough is enough and gave the USPS six weeks to come up with the new data.
It also said that while the USPS did accurately estimate its overall fiscal 1999 costs, “the actual unit costs by subclass and service varied from estimates by meaningful amounts” which, without accurate information could skew its final recommendation to the postal service’s Board of Governors.
Between 1995 and last year the USPS accumulated a total surplus in excess of $5 billion.
