‘Big Day’ for Postal Reform Declared by House Committee

"...Members of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee have lobbied hard for postal reform this year, and have already briefed President Donald Trump about their intention to have a pair of bills arrive on his desk soon.

For the first time in recent years, this attempt to remedy the U.S. Postal Service’s troubled business model has received the support of four major postal unions, private industry and the committee’s leadership from both parties.

“This is a big day. We’ve been working on a postal reform bill for a long time,” committee Chairman Jason Chaffetz (R-Utah) said. “This is the next step in a process that has been very bipartisan from start to finish.”..."

Read more at

Postal Reform Legislation Introduced

"...Legislation has been introduced in the House to make a number of reforms to the Postal Service.

The Postal Service Reform Act of 2017 (H.R. 756) would make pension funding reforms, allow for postal rate increases and even allow the Postal Service to provide non-postal services in some cases.

With regards to reforming the Postal Service’s pension program, the bill would do the following:

• Calculates the Postal Service’s pension costs and liabilities using the salary growth and demographic assumptions that are specific to the Postal Service population instead of the government-wide population, as in current law.
• 
  

• Any surplus within the Postal Service’s Civil Service Retirement System or Federal Employees Retirement System accounts must be amortized over 30 years and returned to the Postal Service...."

The bill also addresses health benefits of current and retired Postal workers:

Read more at fedsmith.com

Proposed USPS Reforms Could Save $17 Billion

"...Postal Service reform coming out of the Senate would save the agency just under $17 billion dollars, including the costs of implementation, according to a new Congressional Budget Office estimate.

The bill would extend the postage rate increase, let USPS cut back delivery to only five days a week and change the payments made to the Postal Service Retiree Health Benefits fund, among other changes...

Under current regulations, the Postal Service must also contribute money to the Federal Employees Health Benefits program as well as to the Postal Service Retiree Health Benefits Fund (PSRHBF) to help cover retirees' and future retirees' health insurance premiums. USPS has not made payments toward the future retirees' fund over the last four years due to its poor financial situation.

With the new bill, USPS would no longer be required to make direct payments to the FEHB fund over the next two years, stated CBO. Instead, the..."

Read more at FederalNewsRadio.com"

Should USPS Follow Private Sector Lead?

"...As the United States Postal Service looks for new ways to save money, one of the options it is considering is making changes to employee retirement benefits to bring them inline with new, emerging private sector standards. But there’s a slight catch: federal law and union rules prevent USPS from making such changes on its own.

The USPS inspector general this month issued two white papers that examined the retirement and benefits provisions of six private sector companies and two government sector programs. And while the studies found many similarities between the government and private sector, there are key differences that may stand in the way of immediate changes for USPS employees..."

Read more at FedScoop

Proposed $20bn Budget in Financial Relief for USPS

"...US President Barrack Obama has proposed a new Budget that seeks more than $20bn in financial and operational relief for the US Postal Service.

The 2015 Budget proposes to return $5bn in pension surpluses to USPS over two years and restructure the Postal Service’s retiree health benefits pre-funding system to potentially provide $9bn in relief up to 2016.

It would defer about $16.7bn in payments defaulted by USPS in 2012 and 2013 to spread repayment out from 2017.

The President’s Budget also proposes some operational changes in the US Mail, starting with an immediate move to abandon Saturday mail delivery and move to a five-day-a-week schedule..."

Read more at postandparcel.info

Postal Bill Would Affect Key Benefits

"...A postal reform bill cleared by the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee would, if enacted, have wide-ranging impacts on key federal benefits programs.

The bill would allow USPS to bargain over a retirement program to replace FERS for employees hired after the enactment date, including on issues such as..."

Read more at FEDweek

USPS-only Health Plan in Postal Reform Bill

"...The Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee debated an updated version of postal reform legislation Wednesday that would allow the cash-strapped U.S. Postal Service to restructure its health benefits program.

Included in the revised postal reform bill from Sens. Tom Carper (D-Del.) and Tom Coburn (R-Okla.) is a proposal that would create a new postal-only health plan within the broader Federal Employees Health Benefits Program (FEHBP).

"If the Postal Service is going to be a viable, self-sustaining entity and not continue to be a drag on the Treasury, we need to work things out on the retiree health care side," Carper said in his opening statement ahead of the bill markup. "And wonder of wonders, I think we've done that."

The program, which would cover all postal employees and retirees, would require Medicare-eligible postal retirees to also enroll in Medicare parts..."

Read more at FederalNewsRadio.com

Will Postal Reform be Hindered by Busy Congress?

"...The top oversight leader in the House has vowed to move forward with his bill to reform the U.S. Postal Service, despite the full plate of high-priority issues Congress currently faces...

Another potential roadblock to postal reform cropped up Monday when several federal employee groups announced their opposition to two major provisions included in the most significant Senate proposal to overhaul USPS...

The workers’ compensation portion of the bill would lower the benefits provided to employees injured on the job who reach retirement age. These employees would receive compensation in line with their retirement benefits, rather than the larger percentage of their full salary they currently earn..."

Read more at GovExec.com

Federal Retirement Issues Abound

"...Starting during the last days of July, there has been one development after another concerning the retirement of federal employees. Here’s a summary of issues that could affect your life after work.

●The Office of Personnel Management had been making good progress on a long-standing problem, the backlog of retirement applications. That’s until budget cuts known as sequestration came along. Postal Service early retirement and buyout programs also unexpectedly added more than 20,000 cases to the workload..."

Read more at the Washington Post

Postal Reform Proposal Modifies Retirees' Health Care Prefunding

"...A draft postal reform bill from the chairman of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee supports ending Saturday mail delivery and would modify how the agency pre-funds retiree health-care payments that now threaten to sink the agency into financial insolvency.

Committee Chairman Darrell Issa (R-Calif.) released the proposed legislation as a "discussion draft" to gather comments on the bill before it's formally introduced, according to a notice on the committee's website.

Congressional postal reform efforts have remained dormant so far this year, even as the Postal Service's financial outlook has worsened.

The draft bill puts a stamp of approval on the Postal Service's plans to end first-class mail delivery on Saturdays while retaining package delivery, which the agency estimates will save as much as $2 billion a year..."

Read more at FederalNewsRadio.com

More Buyouts to Come for USPS Employees with 5-day Delivery

"...The Postal Service's decision to move to five-day-a-week delivery for first class mail means employees will see fewer overtime hours and another round of buyouts.

Postmaster General Patrick Donahoe said Wednesday the reduction in service would be the equivalent of 22,500 employees who would no longer be needed to process and deliver mail.

"Right now the Postal Service, we run in excess of 10 percent overtime, almost 12 percent and we've done this on purpose by not hiring and using attrition to take advantage of people leaving without having to resort to layoffs," said Donahoe during a press briefing in Washington. "We think by eliminating overtime and by looking at some of the flexibilities we have with the part-time workforce, and potentially working with the unions on some buyouts, we'll easily hit that."..."

Read more at FederalNewsRadio.com

The Necessity of Postal Reform

"...Postal overpayments into the Federal Employees Retirement System total some $13 billion. Returning this money to the Postal Service would allow it to fund a large-enough number of early-retirement incentives to enable the necessary reduction in its stubbornly high — 80 percent — and no-longer-affordable personnel costs, as well as for other uses, such as paying down its debt to the Treasury...

it is essential to reform the devastating retiree health care prepayments that the Postal Service must make. These prepayments are the source of the agency’s $11.1 billion in defaults over the past two months, and a major contributor to its precarious financial condition overall. The payments set by Congress are too high, and the Postal Service cannot meet them. Congress should stretch the payments out over 40 years instead of the 10 years under current law. The Senate made this a centerpiece of its postal reform legislation, and the House should follow suit..."

Read more at Federal Times

USPS to Cut 28,000 Via Buyout Incentives

"...The U.S. Postal Service will trim 5,000 jobs by closing or consolidating 48 mail-processing plants over the next three months.

The closures, scheduled for July and August, will be the first of three waves of cutbacks intended to slash 28,000 jobs and reduce the mail-processing network from 461 plants to 232 by 2014...Postal officials expect to handle all 28,000 job cuts through attrition...

The sweeteners include both voluntary early retirement incentives, as well as $15,000 buyouts payable in two installments this year and next year, according to Postal Service documents released by the office of Rep. Elijah Cummings of Maryland, the top Democrat on the House committee that oversees the Postal Service

"

Read more at FederalTimes.com

Senators Call on Leaders to Pass Postal Reform Bill

"...The letter does not ask the House to approve the Senate-passed bill, S. 1789, but does indicate that the senators clearly prefer their bill as a way forward. The senators said that rather than risk USPS closures, their bill would give the service access to money it has overpaid into its retirement fund, and use that money to encourage the retirement of 100,000 workers, which would lead to long-term savings...

The Senate bill, which passed last week in a 62-37 vote, is very different from the leading House GOP bill, H.R. 2309. That proposal, from House Oversight and Government Reform Committee Chairman Darrell Issa (R-Calif.), would set up a commission to recommend closures, authorize USPS to move to a five-day delivery system, and end a current rule that prohibits the closure of an office solely because it's operating at a deficit..."

Read more at thehill.com

Senate Approved Postal Reform Bill

"...The Senate approved a bipartisan bill Wednesday aiming to restructure the cash-strapped U.S. Postal Service, clearing the way for a massive reduction in the agency's workforce.

The final bill, passed by the Senate in a 62-37 vote, refunds to USPS overpayments it made to the federal retirement system. That will allow the agency to pay for buyouts for some 100,000 retirement-eligible employees. The bill also allows USPS to negotiate with its unions about moving postal employees out of the Federal Employees Health Benefits Plan and into a separate insurance program..."

Read more at FederalNewsRadio.com"

Postal Reform Bill Amendment Would Address OPM Backlog

"...An amendment to a Senate bill restructuring the U.S. Postal Service's financial framework would institute new agency reporting requirements for retiring federal workers, anticipating a "deluge of retirees," from USPS.

Sens. Mark Warner (D-Va.) and Barbara Mikulski (D-Md.), introduced last week an amendment to the 21st Century Postal Service Act of 2012 (S. 1789), that requires the Office of Personnel Management to take new steps to chip away at a longstanding backlog of federal retirement claims.

In a floor speech Monday, Warner said his office has received hundreds of requests from federal retirees who have faced long waits and "inordinate hardship ... while their retirement paperwork moves through the system."

The amendment requires OPM to submit monthly public reports to lawmakers and the Government Accountability Office evaluating USPS retirement claims — for timeliness, completeness and accuracy — compared to other federal agencies..."

Read more at FederalNewsRadio.com

Senator's Amendment Would Force USPS Retirements

"...Sen. Tom Coburn, R-Okla., is shepherding a few amendments to S. 1789, including one that would force the Postal Service to dismiss workers who are eligible for retirement to reduce expenses. The legislation in its current form allows USPS to offer buyouts to eligible employees to reduce personnel costs, but Coburn believes requiring eligible workers to retire is a smarter and more cost-effective downsizing strategy...

The amendment would apply only to postal employees currently eligible to receive a full pension under the Civil Service Retirement System or the Federal Employees Retirement System. Coburn cited mandatory retirement for federal law enforcement officers as a potential model for the Postal Service..."

Read more at GovExec.com

USPS Plans While Senate Takes on Postal Reform

"...USPS already has started considering how it would operate with a slimmed-down workforce. Tony Vegliante, chief human capital officer for the Postal Service, said there are three ways it is trying to reduce the number of employees: Attrition, control hiring and voluntary separation incentives.

Vegliante said the Postal Service has received voluntary early retirement authority (VERA) from the Office of Personnel Management. However, it has not yet started offering any buyouts or early outs, he added.

"We've got to see what's happening with our various operational plans, but I think within the near future we will make a decision," ..."

Read more at FederalNewsRadio.com

Senate Begins USPS Reform Debate

"...The U.S. Senate moved Tuesday to consider legislation that would fundamentally reshape the U.S. Postal Service as the struggling agency nears the end of a self-imposed moratorium on closing post offices and processing facilities.

Senators voted 74 to 22 to proceed to debate on the bill, with less than a month left until postal officials say they plan to begin closing hundreds of post offices and processing facilities. Congress requested that USPS wait to close facilities until mid-May so that lawmakers could pass legislation to help USPS save about $22.5 billion by 2016 by curtailing delivery services, closing facilities and offering buyouts to hundreds of thousands of workers..."

Read more at The Washington Post

GAO Warns Congress Must Act Soon on Postal Reform

"...With lawmakers poised to act as soon as next week on legislation overhauling the U.S. Postal Service, a new government audit published Thursday once again warns Congress that it must act soon to help the cash-strapped agency save billions of dollars in the next four years...

The Senate plan, cosponsored by Sens. Thomas Carper (D-Del.), Joseph I. Lieberman (I-Conn.), Susan Collins (R-Maine) and Scott Brown (R-Mass.) would delay the Postal Service’s move to a five-day delivery schedule by two years and require the agency to downsize, rather than close, its processing facilities... the Senate proposal also provides about $7 billion to provide employee buyouts of up to $25,000 to as many as 100,000 eligible workers — a plan that could help USPS meet cost-cutting goals, the report said."

Read more at The Washington Post