Every Tuesday a Holiday?

Update: Postal Service is following the financial sector's lead

In January, Postmaster General John Potter testified that the USPS had lost $2.8 billion last year, and could lose more than $6 billion this year. Yesterday, ABC News reported that:

Potter's base salary rose from $186,000 in 2007 to more than $260,000 last year. On top of that, he received a "performance" bonus of $135,000. Between Potter's salary, bonuses, retirement benefits and other perks, total compensation was more than $850,000.

Potter's earlier testimony was delivered to a Senate subcommittee, but the House subcommittee on the Postal Service is headed by Jason Chaffetz (R-Utah) who told ABC News, "$800,000 doesn't pass the basic sniff test." According to the article, regular postal employees did not receive raises last year.

The raise and performance-based incentives were granted by the Postal Service Board of Governors.

Previously published:

Well, even with the Clipper getting delivered every 2 hours or so, the US Postal Service is no longer getting enough business to keep it solvent. Currently, it's charged with delivering mail six days a week, but the Postmaster General is asking Congress to change that, and to give the USPS the option of delivering only five days a week, as a possible money-saving measure.

So what gives with the USPS anyway? If it's no longer a governmental agency, but a private corporation with a semi-monopoly and a mandate to break even, why do they have to ask for permission from Congress to change things? Or if they’re considered the providers of a public service, why aren’t they supported by our taxes?

Here’s the thing… They’re an “independent establishment of the executive branch." The USPS started out as a cabinet-level department, but by the late 1960s was struggling so mightily with labor, management, and financial issues, that it was cut (fairly) loose in 1971 by the Postal Reorganization Act, which did the following:

• gave operational authority to a Board of Governors made up of members of both parties, and which chooses the Postmaster General, so the management is continuous and depoliticized
• required the USPS to break even, but still provided for Congressional funds to pay for some things (e.g. mandated free mail delivery; highly unprofitable rural post offices)
• established an independent Postal Regulatory Commission which offers rate recommendations
• allowed for collective bargaining for postal employees

So while the Postmaster General and the other members of the Board of Governors may run the USPS like a business, they’re still under the legislative authority spelled out in Title 39 of the US Code. And buried in that law is a requirement that prevents them from scaling back delivery to less than 6 days a week. Hence the appeal to Congress.

Find out about more of our strange, part-government, part-private organizations in the most recent version of the US Government Manual. And try to wean yourself from those Val-Pak coupons slowly…