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Plenty of opportunity there for NCR

On Tue, Jul 26, 2011 at 2:43 PM, Eric Schwerin <eschwerin@rosemontseneca.com
> wrote:

>
>
> http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2011/07/5-ways-to-save-the-us-postal-service/242390/
>
> 5 Ways to Save the U.S. Postal Service
>
> *It's going broke, and while Congress has lots of different ideas to fix
> it, a few solutions have found common ground*
>
> [image: USPS truck - STR News:Reuters - banner.jpg]
>
> Congress is mired in a standoff over the nation's fiscal stability, and
> once the parties find agreement, lawmakers will head home for August recess.
> When they come back, they'll have another fiscal crisis to confront: The
> U.S. Postal Service's pending bankruptcy.
>
> The Postal Service has been going bankrupt for some time now<http://abcnews.go.com/US/us-postal-service-verge-broke-billions-dollars-red/story?id=12133108>.
> In the second quarter of 2011 alone, it lost $2.2 billion<http://www.usps.com/communications/newsroom/2011/pr11_048.htm>
> .
>
> There are two comprehensive bills in Congress aimed at rescuing USPS, one
> from Sen. Tom Carper (D-Del.) and another from House Oversight and
> Government Affairs Committee Chairman Darrell Issa (R-Calif.). The bills are
> very different, but Congress will have to make a decision sometime over the
> next year.
>
> Here are a few proposals pulled from each:
>
> ***1. End Saturday Delivery***
>
> Seemingly everyone but the National Association of Letter Carriers, the
> main union for postal workers, wants to end Saturday deliver. USPS has been
> pushing for it and claims it would save $3.1 billion per year, while the
> administration's Postal Regulatory Commission*, which regulates USPS,
> estimates ending Saturday service would only save $1.7 billion per year and
> would take three years to realize that level of annual savings, ABC
> reported<http://blogs.abcnews.com/thenote/2011/07/postal-service-pushes-to-end-saturday-delivery.html>
> .
>
> ***2. Refund Billions in Retirement Overpayments***
>
> USPS currently pays into the Civil Service Retirement System, an old
> pension system <http://www.opm.gov/retire/pre/csrs/index.asp> for federal
> employees that was replaced by the Federal Employees Retirement System in
> 1987. Sen. Carper's office estimates USPS has overpaid into the old system
> by $50 billion due to an outdated calculation method. Carper wants to
> require the White House's Office of Personnel Management to recalculate the
> yearly USPS obligation based on a new formula and to gradually give that $50
> billion back to USPS, giving it access to $5 billion per year.
>
> ***3. Replace Post Offices With Automated Kiosks***
>
> Currently, when USPS wants to close a post office that's losing a lot of
> money, it faces political opposition and holds public hearings, beginning a
> process that takes 60 days. Both Issa and Carper want to make it easier for
> USPS to close post offices when it wants to. Carper's office suggested USPS
> could replace post offices with "cost-effective retail options such as
> automated kiosks or postal stations located in grocery stores or other
> places where people go every day." Issa recommends $1 billion worth of
> post-office closures per year.
>
> ***4. Change the Rules for Paying Postal Workers***
>
> Postal workers enjoy collectively bargained wages, but the rules of the
> collective bargaining process could be changed. The letter carriers union
> won't like this one bit, but Issa and Carper both have suggested allowing
> federal mediators to take into account the financial health of USPS when
> deciding how much postal workers must be paid, potentially letting USPS pay
> its employees less than UPS and FedEx pay their workers.
>
> ***5. Let Post Offices Do Other Things***
>
> Another common idea is to let post offices partner with state and local
> governments to do other things besides send and deliver mail, like, for
> instance, voter registration and driver's license renewal. Which sounds a
> lot more convenient than the DMV. State and local governments would pay USPS
> to deliver these services.
> ------------------------------
>
> *Update: this story initially referred to the Postal Regulatory Commission
> incorrectly as the Postal Regulatory Board.*
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> Eric D. Schwerin****
> Rosemont Seneca Partners, LLC****
> ****1010 Wisconsin Ave., NW********
> ****Suite** 705******
> ****Washington**, **DC** **20007********
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> eschwerin@rosemontseneca.com****
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>
>


--
Mike Muldoon
Rosemont Seneca Partners, LLC
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Suite 705
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