Spokane7
61°
December 13, 2011
Postal Service to delay cutbacks until mid-May
WASHINGTON — The U.S. Postal Service today agreed to delay the closing of 252 mail processing centers and 3,700 local post offices until mid-May.
In a statement, the cash-strapped agency said it would hold off on closings by several weeks to give Congress more time to pass legislation that would give it more authority and liquidity to stave off bankruptcy. The Postal Service, which is expected to default Friday on a $5.5 billion payment to the Treasury, is forecast to lose a record $14.1 billion next year.
Last week, the Postal Service said it was moving forward on cutbacks. It had planned to begin closing processing centers as early as April, and shutter some post offices early next year.
“There continues to be extreme urgency, and our financial crisis continues,” said postal spokesman David Partenheimer. “But we’re hoping by working with senators and all members of Congress that they can pass comprehensive legislation that allows the Postal Service to return to profitability.”
The agreement by the Postal Service also means that cuts to first-class mail that would slow delivery and, for the first time in 40 years, eliminate the chance for stamped letters to arrive the next day, would not occur before May 15. Previously, the post office said it had hoped to implement the cuts to first-class service in April.
Last Thursday, a group of 21 senators from mostly rural states led by Bernie Sanders, an independent from Vermont, signed a letter to congressional leaders asking them to add language to legislation that would halt closings for six months. The closures could cost 100,000 postal employees their jobs.
“What I feared very much is that the post office unilaterally would start making drastic cuts to processing plants, rural post offices and slow first-class mail service before Congress can pass postal reform,” Sanders said. “So it’s a step forward in terms of giving us time with certainty that rural post offices won’t be closed.”
In all, roughly 100,000 postal employees could be cut as a result of the various closures, resulting in savings of up to $6.5 billion a year.
The Postal Service, an independent agency of government, does not receive tax money, but it is subject to congressional control on major aspects of its operations.
Separate bills that have passed House and Senate committees would give the Postal Service more authority to reduce delivery to five days a week, raise stamp prices and reduce health care and other labor costs.
The Senate bill would refund nearly $7 billion the Postal Service overpaid into a federal retirement fund, encourage a restructuring of health benefits and reduce the agency’s annual payments into a future retiree health account. No other agency or business is required to make such health prepayments.
© Copyright 2011 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
Spokane mail processing consolidation made official 
deacon46 on December 13 at 2:41 p.m.
Like day light savings this dinosaur lives on. May will come and go and many thereafter. The most advanced nation in the world in many respects but its politics and government remain locked in the 1900s. You may argue the PS is not an Government agency but we the tax payer pays the money loss and the PS can’t act without Government approval. Typical USA Government smoke and mirrors. Progress like democracy is to benefit the majority.
meadman on December 13 at 4:42 p.m.
Deacon do some objective research on this fiasco, and you will find that the GOP-controlled congress back in 2008 (I think that date is correct) passed legislation that REQUIRED the post office to front-fund all the future health and retirement accounts for 75 years into the future!!! …AND they gave the post office a 10 year window to pay all this money into an account.
No other agency or business has ever been required to do such a thing. As a result, the PO is loosing billions every year…… some think this was done by the Republicans EXPLICITLY to force it into bankruptcy in the near future so that mail service could be privatized. This, then, would be a great gift from the GOP to their big-business corporate masters.
misjustice on December 13 at 8:07 p.m.
Meadman nailed it…also “Deacon” the USPS is Constitutionally mandated, in case you didn’t read the document beyond the 2nd Amendment…
Just sayin’…
Oh, and it was that jerkoff Darrell Issa - accused arsonist and car thief - that wrote the bill passed under the Cheney adminstration as a pay back to Fed-Ex and UPS for campaign contributions…
Pigrobin on December 13 at 8:46 p.m.
Just because it is mandated doesn’t mean it doesn’t need a complete overhaul. The bottom line is the market changed and we don’t need it. You guys can get all nostalgic about the need for the USPS of yore but the fact remains, it’s not kept up with our needs. We need FedEx, we need UPS, and no matter how you slice it the USPS has not kept up. This was inevitable, why delay it?
RedCedar on December 13 at 9:55 p.m.
The first two things they should ask Congress to do are to allow the USPS to carry anything that UPS and FedEx carry (including wine and guns), and to eliminate the Amazon.com/Netflix subsidy known as “media mail”. there’s no reason to allow books and magazines to go at half price any more. Things are different from the 1800s when the only way to get information about the world to ma and pa up in Skeeter Holler was to mail them a magazine.