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ONE VIEW:
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Mail Safety Said to Suffer Without More Funds
November 7, 2001 7:35 pm EST
By Christopher Doering
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. Postal Service will not be able to improve mail safety and protect the public without a multibillion-dollar bailout package from Congress, postal officials said on Wednesday.
Four people have died of anthrax and authorities say a total of 17 people have contracted the disease -- most from letters laced with the powdery anthrax spores. In recent weeks, the Postal Service has acknowledged that it cannot guarantee mail is safe.
Postmaster General Jack Potter is expected to ask a Senate appropriations panel on Thursday for funding to cover the new technology needed to sanitize mail and to make up for a sharp drop in revenue.
"Building an infrastructure is not cheap," Deputy Postmaster General John Nolan said at a news conference on Wednesday. "Without the funds necessary to make those improvements, it will be difficult to do all the things we'd like to do long-term to eliminate this situation."
Nolan said the Postal Service will request several billion dollars in congressional aid. Officials are still analyzing volume and revenue data before naming an exact number.
Postal Service officials said earlier this week that revenue was about $800 million below forecasts and volume was down 7 percent since the deadly Sept. 11 attacks on the Pentagon and World Trade Center.
The Postal Service was on track to lose an estimated $1.35 billion in its 2002 fiscal year prior to the attacks in Washington and New York.
During the last month, anthrax has been found in several media outlets, federal buildings and a slew of postal facilities. Two postal employees died, three were hospitalized and thousands of others have been given antibiotics as a precaution.
Still, top mail executives said they expect the holiday season to be largely unaffected by concerns about mail safety.
Officials with L.L. Bean Inc., Fingerhut and 36 other companies told the Postal Service they were confident steps by the service were sufficient to protect packages.
"There will be a Christmas despite the anthrax scare," said Michael Sherman, chief executive of Fingerhut, a unit of Federated Department Stores Inc. "We have been moving right along with our plans to rely on the Postal Service to deliver our packages," he said.
The Postal Service, which has delivered about 30 billion pieces of mail since the Sept. 11 attacks, said it met with business executives as part of its efforts to improve safety and security without a drop in service.
"I have not seen any erosion of service since September 11, and every effort is being made to make this mail safe," said Chris McCormick, chief executive of L.L. Bean, an apparel retailer.
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ANOTHER VIEW:
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CAGW Blasts Post Office for Pursuing Rate Increases
Waste, Fraud, and Abuse Rampant at USPS
Citizens Against Government Waste (CAGW) today excoriated the U.S. Postal Service (USPS) for filing a new rate case with the Postal Rate Commission, seeking $6.1 billion in postage rate increases across the board. The proposed hike comes in addition to the $3 billion in increases the Post Office has implemented since January. If the rate case takes the customary 10 months to a year, the rates could be going to effect in October of 2002, just in time for the USPS's most lucrative quarter, the holiday season. There are some indications that the USPS may seek to expedite the case.
"Postal management has long refused to trim their bloated workforce, enact real productivity reforms, or trim some of the $1.4 billion in waste identified by USPS's own inspector general," CAGW Vice President Leslie K. Paige said. "The Post Office, which has tax exemptions and other government-conferred benefits worth more than $1 billion annually, has seen a decline in mail volume over the last several years due to the Internet," Paige also said. "Yet, today it employs 906,000 people, a 36 percent increase from 1980. The agency has lost tens of millions of dollars in failed commercial ventures unrelated to delivering the mail and has been plagued by wasteful spending, such as shelling out exorbitant moving stipends to postal executives to move closer to their offices, postal officials using chauffeur-driven limos for personal business, and handing out more than $100 million in management bonuses during a year when it was losing over a billion."
The USPS request amounts to an overall rate increase of 8.7 percent. For standard mail, rates would rise 7.3 percent. Regular standard mail rates would rise an average of 8 percent, and nonprofit rates an average of 6.7 percent. Commercial enhanced carrier route rates would rise an average of 6.2 percent, and nonprofit enhanced carrier route rates would increase an average of 6.5 percent.
"The Post Office is one of the most wasteful and bloated operations in America," Paige added. "Only the USPS would raise rates during an economic downturn, when real businesses tend to be cutting prices. Only the USPS would maintain a bulging workforce when real businesses are trying to reduce labor costs. Only the USPS would jack up prices even while service and efficiency deteriorate. If it were truly a private business it would have gone Chapter XI years ago. The only thing propping it up is its special breaks from the government and its monopoly status. Until the waste is eliminated, there should be no more talk of rate hikes."
CAGW is the nation's largest taxpayer advocacy group with over one million members and supporters nationwide. It is a nonpartisan, nonprofit organization dedicated to eliminating waste, fraud, mismanagement and abuse in government. |
