NATIONAL ASSOCIATION OF POSTAL SUPERVISORS
POSTAL LEGISLATIVE UPDATE - APRIL 19, 2007


In This Issue:



SUPERVISORS ADD CONCERNS OVER CONTRACTING OUT OF DELIVERY SERVICE
 
    NAPS President Ted Keating, joined by the presidents of the two postmaster organizations, told a House Congressional panel on Tuesday that the supervisors organization was clearly opposed to the Postal Service’s increasing expansion of contracting out of delivery service on new urban and suburban routes.   

    “Let there be no doubt, I share significant concerns about contracting out, not only because of the security of the mail, but also because of the added burden that contracting out too frequently imposes upon supervisors in assuring that delivery is completed,” President Keating told a House federal workforce and postal service subcommittee, chaired by Rep. Danny Davis (D-IL), during a hearing on postal operations on Tuesday.   

    The hearing was the first Congressional review of postal matters since the enactment of landmark postal reform legislation last December.  A similar Senate oversight hearing by a governmental affairs subcommittee, chaired by Sen. Tom Carper (D-DE), is scheduled for today.  The House panel on Tuesday heard from NAPS and the six other postal employee groups, as well as the Postal Service, the Postal Regulatory Commission, and GAO. 

    Hearing witnesses raised a wide variety of issues, but none was more contentious than whether the Postal Service should expand contracting out of delivery service to urban and suburban areas.  The issue has become an increasing top concern among the four postal employee unions, some of which picketed USPS headquarters in Washington on Monday to protest the practice.  Although the Postal Service contends that outsourcing of mail delivery represents a long-established practice, critics point to increasing USPS emphasis upon it as an unreliable way to rein in costs.  NAPS President Keating, as well as NAPUS President Dale Goff and League President Charles Mapa, all expressed concerns about delivery outsourcing at Tuesday's hearing, questioning whether contracting out ultimately produces greater efficiency and savings. “I’ve supervised contractors for 27 years, and all I can say is that you get what you pay for,” Goff warned.  

    Subcommittee chairman Danny Davis also announced at Tuesday’s hearing that his Congressional panel would hold a May 31 field hearing in his home town of Chicago to explore why mail service in the Windy City has deteriorated.  Postal officials acknowledge that mail is getting delivered late and that service quality numbers in Chicago are lower than other major cities and the national average. Postmaster General Jack Potter during his hearing appearance on Tuesday committed the Postal Service to fixing the problems in Chicago, including the addition of 200 carriers on city routes, upgrading equipment and reconfiguring the delivery network.  

    NAPS President Keating, commenting on the Chicago situation during his oral testimony, linked the service problems there to the inappropriate mix of pay-for-performance incentives that the Postal Service continues to use.  “Time after time, deficient service has been linked to insufficient staffing, where supervisors are barred from raising staffing numbers or discouraged by the disincentives that are imposed by pay-for-performance measures,” Keating advised the Congressional panel. 

    The NAPS written hearing statement is at:  http://www.naps.org/Legislative_News/Keating-Testimony_04-17-07.pdf



NAPS TO FBI: BRIEF CONGRESS ON ANTHRAX INVESTIGATION

    New Jersey NAPS leaders and their counterparts in other postal employee organizations joined Rep. Rush Holt (D-NJ) in Princeton, New Jersey on April 10 at a press conference, calling upon the FBI to update Congress on the status of the Bureau’s investigation into the unsolved 2001 anthrax attacks.  The deadly attacks killed two postal workers, injured 17 others and terrified the country. 

    Rep. Holt, in whose Congressional district the anthrax mailings originated, has been at the forefront of a bipartisan effort to have the FBI brief Congress on the status of the investigation.  The case remains unsolved five and one-half years after the attacks occurred.  "We are here for one reason: for closure and justice," Les Cohen, NAPS New Jersey state branch president, told reporters at the press conference. 

    NAPS President Ted Keating joined with the presidents of the six other postal employee organizations last month in sending a joint letter to Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, urging him to make FBI Director Robert Mueller available to brief Congress on the state of the FBI’s investigation.  The letter is at:  http://www.naps.org/Legislative_News/AnthraxLtr-AG-Gonzales_03-19-7.pdf

  
 
DISPELLING THE HIGH-FIVE RUMORS

    Nothing creates unfounded fear in the postal and federal employee community than misunderstanding, stoked by a thick, complicated Washington report.  That’s what’s behind an increased spate of internet-fed rumors that Congress is about to cut health and retirement benefits for postal and federal employees, including the realignment of the high-three annuity formula. Rest easy, nothing could be further from the truth.

    While Congress faces the gargantuan task of restraining Federal spending, and it’s crazy to never say “never” ever, the new Congress has demonstrated little interest in disrupting postal and federal employee retirement benefits as a way to create a source of easy cash to balance the government’s books.  The rumors about a raid on health and retirement benefits have been fed by misunderstanding about a Congressional Budget Office report to Congress, released in February, providing more than 250 options for altering spending and revenues as Congress considers priorities and adjusting needs.  Among the options are ones that involve federal health and retirement benefits, including: changing the method for determining the Government’s share of the health insurance premium, expanding the high-three annuity formula to a high-five basis, as well as changing how inflation is measured in the computation of the cost-of-living adjustment provided to federal and postal retirees.

    Here's the deal: The delivery of the CBO options report to Congress is an annual exercise.  This year’s CBO report – as in CBO reports in past years - identifies a huge range of spending-cut options.  Congress usually refrains from touching any of them, due to the powerful interests and complicated policy issues underlying change.  Some members of Congress may issue press releases, and news reports may follow-up on some of them on a slow day, but otherwise, business as usual goes on.  Like it or not, that's the way Washington works.   

    The CBO report came as no surprise to NAPS or the other postal and federal employee and retiree organizations – as well as members of Congress – who collectively support and maintain a vigilant watch over the protection of the health and retirement benefits of postal and federal employees.  As CBO cautioned in the preface to its report, “In keeping with CBO’s mandate to provide impartial and objective analysis, the report makes no recommendations, and the discussion of each option summarizes the arguments for and against it.”  Welcome to Washington, where rumors can start as easily as scandals.

    Oh yes, the report is at: http://www.cbo.gov/ftpdocs/78xx/doc7821/02-23-BudgetOptions.pdf.


Bruce Moyer
NAPS Legislative Counsel