Postal execs can pocket move allowance

WASHINGTON – The Postal Service gives its executives moving expenses of $10,000 or $25,000 without requiring receipts, allowing employees to pocket any leftover money.

The mail service says it uses the payments as a way of easing transitions to new, sometimes more expensive cities and ensuring that executives won’t be lured away by competitors.

One senior vice president received $75,000 – $25,000 each for three moves from June 1998 to February 2001. The mail service gave 265 executives $10,000 each and 10 others $25,000 each in the past two years, according to information gathered by Senate Finance Committee investigators.

The Postal Service defends the practice, saying Congress wanted it to operate like private business where salaries may be higher. Committee Chairman Charles Grassley, R-Iowa, isn’t buying the argument.

“The American public does not want to pay more for postage so that you can give that amount to handouts to USPS executives,” Grassley wrote in a letter Tuesday to Postmaster General John Potter.

Ralph Moden, the Postal Service’s senior vice president for government relations, wrote Grassley earlier this month that unlike other executive branch employees, postal executives do not receive automatic yearly increases.

“Increases to salary are solely based on performance,” Moden wrote. “With no locality pay, we often have difficulty recruiting talented individuals for the more challenging positions, many of which are located in high cost-of-living areas.”

Whether a postal executive actually gets to pocket moving expenses depends on the locations involved and the size of his or her living quarters.

Moving expense figures provided by the American Moving and Storage Association shows that someone moving a two-bedroom apartment would likely pocket thousands of dollars if given a $10,000 stipend.

Besides moving costs, an executive might incur costs for real estate agent services, closing a home sale, transporting a family and hunting for a home.

Grassley wrote Potter that he doesn’t understand why the moving payments should be justified on grounds that postal executives’ raises are based on performance.

“If talented individuals are being rewarded for good performance, why do they need payments of $10,000 and sometimes more, as an inducement to relocate?” he asked.

In some cases, Grassley said, payments have been handed out to individuals who moved only a few miles.