{"id":21676,"date":"2022-03-09T11:29:53","date_gmt":"2022-03-09T19:29:53","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/occupysf.net\/?p=21676"},"modified":"2022-03-09T12:46:33","modified_gmt":"2022-03-09T20:46:33","slug":"usps-reform-bill-offering-much-needed-reset-on-its-finances-passes-senate","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/2022\/03\/09\/usps-reform-bill-offering-much-needed-reset-on-its-finances-passes-senate\/","title":{"rendered":"USPS reform bill offering \u2018much-needed reset\u2019 on its finances passes Senate"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Jory Heckman<\/a>@jheckmanWFED<\/a> March 8, 2022  (federalnewsnetwork.com)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A long-awaited reform bill expected to save the Postal Service a total of $107 billion is headed to President Joe Biden\u2019s desk.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Senate on Tuesday passed the Postal Service Reform Act, which would, among other things, eliminate a 2006 mandate from Congress to pre-fund retiree health benefits.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Postmaster General Louis DeJoy supports the bill, as do postal unions and associations, who say it will address USPS\u2019s long-term financial challenges.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

DeJoy said in a statement that the bill, combined with operational reforms in the agency\u2019s 10-year reform plan, will allow USPS to continue to self-fund its operations \u201cfor many decades to come.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI thank the Senate and our committee leadership that broke the 10-year logjam which has long constrained the finances of the Postal Service,\u201d DeJoy said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) said the legislation would give USPS a \u201cmuch-needed reset\u201d and relief from an unsustainable business model.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cBecause of today\u2019s bill, the Postal Service will be stronger, more efficient and better able to serve more people, and we did it on a bipartisan basis,\u201d Schumer said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

American Postal Workers Union President Mark Dimondstein said the 2006 pre-funding mandate \u201cstrangled the Post Office financially.\u201d The legislation, he said, will allow USPS to reinvest in its workforce and infrastructure.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWhen that money comes back into the postal system, it gets turned into better staffing, which gets turned into better service. It gets turned into better equipment, better buildings and better vehicles,\u201d Dimondstein said in an interview Tuesday.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The bill stands out as the first major piece of postal reform legislation to make it through Congress in more than 15 years, and addresses issues that stem from the Postal Accountability and Enhancement Act, the last reform effort lawmakers passed in 2006.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The bill now heads to the White House, and Biden, who supports the legislation<\/a>, is expected to sign it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

John McHugh, a former secretary of the Army and chairman of the House Oversight Committee\u2019s Postal Service Subcommittee, now chairman of the Package Coalition, said the decision from Congress to eliminate the pre-funding mandate is the \u201cright thing to do.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

McHugh said the 2006 Postal Accountability and Enhancement Act made sense at the time, and helped cement USPS\u2019s role in the emerging e-commerce package business, but didn\u2019t account for the 2008 recession, which led to a significant loss in first-class mail volume that never returned.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cPackages were taking off, but it also came with a great decline in first-class revenue. And remember, just after 2006, the economic bubble burst, the economy went into a significant slump,\u201d McHugh said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

House and Senate lawmakers introduced many similar postal reform bills over the past few years, but few made it far in either chamber, despite broad recognition from both parties that USPS wasn\u2019t on firm financial footing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Dimondstein said the COVID-19 pandemic created a sense of urgency for Congress to pass this legislation. USPS became an essential service during lockdowns in the early stages of the pandemic and saw a surge in package deliveries.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The pandemic, however, also renewed concerns about the agency\u2019s financial condition.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIt\u2019s been a tragic, challenging time, but I think it did underscore for the people of the country, the politicians on Capitol Hill, just how important the public Postal Service is to the people of the  country, and our general mission of binding the country together really shined through in the last couple of years. I think that is a factor in everybody coming together,\u201d Dimondstein said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The bill will save USPS $50 billion over the next 10 years by eliminating a provision from the 2006 law that required USPS to pre-fund retiree health benefits well into the future.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

USPS, under the legislation, will instead return to an annual pay-as-you-go system to fund retiree health benefits.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWhen those benefits need to be paid, the [USPS] simply pays for it, and so that will go a long way in addressing some of the financial squeeze that the 2006 law put on the Postal Service,\u201d Dimondstein said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The legislation also forgives USPS\u2019s obligation to pay $57 billion in scheduled payments to its retiree health benefits fund.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The agency, citing its long-term financial challenges, has defaulted on payments to the fund since 2012, but still had to count these payments in its financial statements.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The bill also requires all future postal retirees to enroll in Medicare parts B and D.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Dimondstein said about 80% of APWU retirees already enroll in Medicare Part B voluntarily.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIt should save money over the long run for the individual worker, because our premiums will be somewhat less. It\u2019ll save money for the Postal Service, because their part of the premiums will be a little less, because Medicare will become the primary health care provider and [Federal Employees Health Benefits program] will become the secondary,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee Chairman Gary Peters (D-Mich.), who led efforts to pass the bill, said the legislation would not have any effect on Medicare Part B or Part D premiums.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Peters said fewer than 40,000 new USPS workers would need to enroll in Part B under the legislation, compared to the 62 million currently in the program. The bill, he added, wouldn\u2019t have any effect on the Medicare Part A trust fund.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Senate passed a \u201cclean\u201d version of the bill, without any amendments, to avoid having to send the bill back to the House before heading to the president\u2019s desk.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Sen. Rick Scott (R-Fla.) objected to the Senate passing the bill without any room for amendments, and without scheduling a hearing or markup from the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI\u2019ve been disappointed that I\u2019m on the committee that deals with the Postal Service, and we didn\u2019t even have a vote on this. I didn\u2019t have any opportunity in the committee to propose an amendment. It doesn\u2019t look like I\u2019ll have an opportunity here to have my colleagues vote on an amendment, and I don\u2019t think that\u2019s right,\u201d Scott said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Peters, however, said the final version of the bill reflects compromises from all sides, and only includes USPS reforms that have been \u201coverdue for over a decade.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThis bill is limited to absolutely essential consensus, bipartisan reforms that are necessary to ensure that the Postal Service can survive and can continue delivering for the American people. Everything in this bill has bipartisan agreement,\u201d Peters said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The bill would also allow USPS to branch out into offering non-postal services on behalf of state, local or tribal governments.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Dimondstein said that would allow USPS to help issue state hunting or fishing licenses or even some services from state departments of motor vehicles.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cYou have some states, where for people to actually get state government services in person, sometimes people have to drive 60, 70 80, 90 miles to get them. And in their own town, there\u2019s a post office right there,\u201d Dimondstein said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Sen. Tom Carper (D-Del.), the author of several previous postal reform bills, said USPS becoming a storefront for other government services is a crucial part of its future.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe need people on the [USPS] Board of Governors who are very good at figuring out how do we help the Postal Service monetize the burden of going to every single mailbox in the country six days a week. How do we do that? How do we help the Postal Service turn that into a financial opportunity?\u201d Carper said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Sen. Jerry Moran (R-Kan.), another long-time supporter of USPS reform,  said the Postal Service\u2019s quality of service has \u201csignificantly declined\u201d in rural parts of the country as its financial condition worsened.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cOver the past decade, the Postal Service has slowly \u2014 and sometimes quickly \u2014 eliminated services. And in the elimination of services, it created what I\u2019d call a death spiral \u2014 shorter hours, fewer post offices, mail processing facilities further away and fewer of them,\u201d Moran said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

To mitigate its losses, USPS has closed some of its mail processing facilities. But Moran said he would press USPS to reopen some of the processing facilities that have been closed in Kansas.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe need the return of those postal processing facilities. Their departure had dramatic and consequential effects upon the Postal Service,\u201d Moran said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The legislation, however, doesn\u2019t change the Postal Service\u2019s financial condition overnight.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Porter McConnell, the co-founder of the Save the Post Office Coalition, and director of the Take on Wall Street Campaign, said Congress \u201chas laid a foundation\u201d for the Postal Service\u2019s future by passing the bill, but said additional work is needed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe post office of the future, just like the post office of the past, must be free to meet new needs and bring in new revenue. If Congress and the President don\u2019t clear a path for this growth and change, we\u2019ll just find ourselves having the same conversation again in ten years,\u201d McConnell said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

McHugh said Congress and watchdogs should allow time for the Postal Service to improve its financial condition.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cYou\u2019ve got to give it a little bit of time to work, and this is not a cure-all. I don\u2019t think anybody would come out of the House or Senate chamber and say, \u2018This bill is going to fix everything.\u2019 And I don\u2019t think the postmaster general would say that either. So it\u2019ll take a little while, and I think it\u2019d be interesting to give them a fair amount of time to utilize the savings that will come out of this, and they don\u2019t all come on day one either,\u201d McHugh said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"\/<\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Jory Heckman<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Jory Heckman is a reporter at Federal News Network covering U.S. Postal Service, IRS, big data and technology issues.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Follow @jheckmanWFED<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Jory Heckman@jheckmanWFED March 8, 2022  (federalnewsnetwork.com) A long-awaited reform bill expected to save the Postal Service a total of $107 billion is headed to President Joe Biden\u2019s desk. The Senate on Tuesday passed the Postal Service Reform Act, which would, among other things, eliminate a 2006 mandate from Congress to… Continue reading → <\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21676"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=21676"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21676\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":21689,"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21676\/revisions\/21689"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=21676"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=21676"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=21676"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}