I recently started a new piece here on the The Acquisition Corner, as a result of the complete fiscal mismanagement of the U.S. Postal Service (USPS).
The Federal Times reported this week that the issues with the USPS are not only severe, but at the point that radical change is necessary if the USPS is to survive:
…Postmaster General John Potter warned Friday that the U.S. Postal Service could go broke by next September.
"If things go as expected, we will perhaps be able to get through the year and literally run out of cash in September of 2011 because we will have exhausted all of our borrowing authority," he said at a news conference.
He said losses in the fiscal year ending yesterday widened to about $6 billion…
It gets worse:
…This has been a devastating week for the Postal Service. Besides ending the year with a $6 billion loss, the agency's bid to raise stamp rates was rejected by the Postal Regulatory Commission on Thursday. The proposed rate hike would have increased first-class stamps from 44 cents to 46 cents starting in January.
Potter said the agency is studying its options in the wake of that decision. Among those options: Appeal the decision to a federal court; refile the rate request; or seek to raise rates by an amount tied to the inflation rate. That last step would not require the PRC's approval, although the commission would have to verify that the increase is no higher than a cap linked to the Consumer Price Index. According to the latest available numbers, that formula would permit an average rate increase of about 1.5 percent, a PRC spokesman said today…
What about consolidating operations, cutting costs, and other tools to improve performance to help the fiscal crisis facing the USPS? Perhaps it was not reported, but I have not seen much effort coming from USPS management on these issues other than possibly cutting Saturday delivery. The forever stamps may be an option as I commented, but hopefully they will still have utility.
No comments:
Post a Comment