Federal Daily - March 3, 2010
New USPS Plan Would Close Slow Stations, Trim Delivery
Amid ever greater reductions in mail volume and revenue, Postmaster General John Potter March 2 unveiled details on just how the quasi-governmental agency plans to stay afloat in the years ahead.
Potter, who keynoted a press and executive event to debut the measures, came armed with three private-sector reviews, including a McKinsey & Co. report predicting that without serious intervention, the red ink at USPS would grow over 10 years from more than $5 billion last year to a hypothetical $33 billion in 2020.
“Management has worked very hard to build a plan for ourselves under the current law to try to close that [cumulative] gap of $238 billion,” Potter told the audience gathered at Postal headquarters. “We’re going to make an effort to [cut] $123 billion right out of that. So, we have a challenge in front of us.”
The plan proposed by McKinsey to excise roughly that amount—just over half of the agency’s predicted operating deficit by 2020—includes five major bottom line-enhancing measures that could be tweaked, including “product and service actions” such as postage price increases. “We are not talking about closing the entire gap using that tool,” Potter said, “But it is one of the top five tools that we have available.”
Other “tools” include purchasing savings, reduced debt service costs, and—most important to USPS employees—productivity improvements and “workforce flexibility improvements.”
In fact, however, Potter stressed that the Postal Service has decided so far not to accept any of the McKinsey proposals whole cloth, but rather to go at some of them in a “moderate” and “balanced” way, and reject others completely.
The McKinsey report, presented earlier by Thomas Dohrmann, a principal with the consulting firm, recommended more drastic measures that would end an additional $115 billion of the expected shortfall.
The agenda item gaining the most publicity so far is a plan to cease regular mail delivery and pick-up on Saturdays. But other moves backed by Postal Service management include closing many freestanding Postal Service locations, and developing more “partnerships, self-service kiosks and a world-class Web site.”
Equally key to the plan is an effort to “improve workforce flexibility by changing the employee mix and taking advantage of over 300,000 voluntary separations over the next 10 years,” as the agency put it in a release.
Asked by FederalDaily how he felt the major postal unions might respond to the conference proposals to further pare jobs over time, Potter replied: “Obviously, most of what we’ve described here affects jobs … On the other hand, what would truly affect jobs is the Postal Service going out of business.”
“You know, I speak with the unions on a regular basis,” he continued. “And I am hoping that they will change. But I think that that question is better asked of them—I don’t want to try to speak for the unions here.”
Potter and Dohrmann were joined in the presentation and panel discussion by Louis J. Giuliano, the chairman of the Postal Service Board of Governors, Thurgood Marshall, Jr., vice chairman of that board, Patrick R. Donahoe, USPS deputy postmaster general and chief operating officer of the agency, and Robert F. Bernstock, USPS president of mailing and shipping services. The event was moderated by Linda A. Kingsley, Postal Service senior vice president, strategy and transition.
For more, go to: www.usps.com.
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TSP Returns for February 2010
Rates of Return were updated on March 1, 2010.
| |
G Fund |
F Fund |
C Fund |
S Fund |
I Fund |
| February 2010 |
0.24% |
0.38% |
3.11% |
4.89% |
0.06% |
Last 12 months*
(3/01/2009 to 2/28/2010) |
3.12% |
9.40% |
53.84% |
67.44% |
56.07% |
Percentages in ( ) are negative.
* The returns for the G, F, C, S and I funs for the past 12 months, assuming that,
with the exception for the crediting of earnings, unchanging balances (time-weighting)
from month to month and assuming that earnings are compounded on a monthly basis.
The monthly G, F, C, S, and I Fund returns represent the actual total rates of return used in the
monthly allocation of earnings to participant accounts. The returns are shown after deduction of accrued
TSP administrative expenses. The F, C, S, and I Fund returns also reflect the deduction of trading
costs and accrued investment management fees. The most current G, F, C, S, and I Fund rates of return
are shown above. Returns are updated after the monthly allocation of earnings, usually by the fourth
business day of the month.
| |
L Income |
L 2010 |
L 2020 |
L 2030 |
L 2040 |
| February 2010 |
0.74% |
0.81% |
1.61% |
1.94% |
2.18% |
| Last 12 Months |
13.05% |
16.67% |
33.95% |
41.00% |
47.08% |
Percentages in ( ) are negative.
For more on TSP, click here.
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NTEU, NCUA Form Labor-Management Council
Labor-management councils are on their way. The National Treasury Employees Union announced March 2 that it had signed an agreement with the National Credit Union Administration to form the NCUA/NTEU Partnership Council, which the union said is the first such pact between the union and a federal agency under President Obama’s executive order on labor-management collaboration.
NTEU President Colleen Kelley said the agreement starts “a new chapter at NCUA—one that includes the expertise and experience of frontline employees.”
The council, headed by Kelley and NCUA Chairman Debbie Matz, includes six NTEU member employees and six NCUA management officials. The new organization will hold its first meeting this month at the Federal Mediation & Conciliation Service offices in Washington, D.C. Minutes of each meeting will be distributed to all NCUA employees, NTEU said.
To see more, go to www.nteu.org.
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