National Association of Postal Supervisors
Legislative Update
June 25, 2007

In this edition:


NAPS Endorses Harkin Bill to Ban Contracting Out of Delivery Services

NAPS has thrown its support behind Senate legislation that would bar the Postal Service from expanding the contracting out of mail delivery services.  NAPS’ endorsement of “The Mail Delivery Protection Act of 2007” (S. 1457), a bill introduced by Sen. Tom Harkin (D-IA), came in a June 14 letter from NAPS President Ted Keating to Sen. Harkin. 

Harkin’s bill would forbid the Postal Service from entering into any contract with individuals and firms for the delivery of mail on any route with one or more families per mile.  Keating called the legislation “fundamentally necessary” and said, “Contracting out delivery services threatens to undermine the confidence of the American people and the integrity of the postal system itself …”  “While the business case for contracting out may appear initially attractive, the real costs of contracting out far outweigh the benefits.  The costs to the Postal Service in the degradation of service quality and reliability ultimately are greater than the savings achieved.” 

The Postal Service claims that its plans to expand the contracting out of delivery services are necessary to control costs.  Those efficiencies are achieved largely through the use of low-wage, low-benefit, part time contract carriers instead of career Postal Service employees.

President Keating in his June 14 letter pointed to the supervisory downside of contracting out delivery services, noting, “The experience of some managers in the supervision of existing contract carriers has been unfavorable.”  “Contracting out in some cases has resulted in the responsibility for mail delivery ultimately falling to supervisors themselves, because of the failure of contracted carriers to arrive for work or to satisfactorily complete their contracted responsibilities.  These circumstances have placed unnecessary and unwarranted burdens upon postal supervisors, ones that rarely arose when USPS employee carriers were performing deliveries.”

In the House of Representatives, Rep. Albio Sires (D-NJ) has authored H. Res. 282, which condemns the practice of contracting out and urges the Postal Service to halt the practice immediately.


House Prepares to Avoid Its Obligation to Repay the Postal Service (Again); NAPS and Others  Protest

The Postal Service was dealt a financial blow by the House Appropriations Committee on June 11 when the Committee voted to deny the Postal Service its annual $29 million reimbursement to offset Congressionally-mandated postage discounts to charitable organizations, rural newspapers and mailings for the blind.  The decision to deny the Postal Service the so-called "revenue forgone" payment was made during the House Appropriations Committee's approval of the Fiscal Year 2008 Financial Services and General Government  Appropriation bill.  Instead of providing the Postal Service the expected funds, the House committee directed the money towards increased funding for the Small Business Administration.

The revenue forgone payment represents one of the only sources of taxpayer funds received by the Postal Service.  In 1993 Congress established a revenue forgone funding schedule of $29  million per year over 42 years to repay $800 million in back payments owed the Postal Service for postage discounts mandated by Congress in 1970 for charitable groups, national and state political parties, in-county mailing of local newspapers,  and other purposes.

Soon after the House Appropriations Committee action, Postmaster General John Potter appealed to the Committee, urging it to restore the revenue forgone payment, and on June 20, NAPS and other postal employee organizations added their voices.   In a June 20 letter to the House Appropriations Committee,  NAPS President Ted Keating and the presidents of the other postal management organizations and unions said, "This is a debt that the federal government has been paying for the last 14 years."  "It is a debt on which the Federal Government has 28 more payments.  It is a debt that the Federal Government should continue to pay, until it is paid off.  It is difficult to see how the Congress can expect the Postal Service to act responsibly, efficiently, and in the public interest unless Congress is willing to do the same."

Other members of Congress agreed, including the top Democrat and Republican on the House panel that oversees the Postal Service.  Rep. Danny Davis (D-IL) and Rep. Kenny Marchant (R-TX), the chairman and ranking minority member of the House Subcommittee on the Federal Workforce, Postal Service, and the District of Columbia, urged the House Appropriations Committee to restore the revenue forgone payment to the Postal Service in a June 18 letter to Rep. David Obey, chairman of the Appropriations Committee. 

Davis and Marchant pointed to the negative impact that lack of revenue forgone funding will have upon the Postal Service, through no fault of its own: "Failure to fund this authorized appropriation places the remaining debt of more than $800 million at risk of nonpayment, which would significantly increase postage costs.  As the Postal Service works to satisfy its long-term obligations in a responsible manner, it would be counterproductive to increase those costs through nonpayment of a debt.  The failure to provide funds for these services over time will require the Postal Service to record these obligations as a bad debt and will unfairly transfer these costs to postage ratepayers."

The FY 2008 Financial Services funding bill, the measure from which the House Appropriations Committee has struck the revenue forgone funding payment, is expected to come to the House floor soon, and the House chamber is expected to stand by the Committee's action.  That will require the Postal Service and its supporters to seek a different result the Senate, with inclusion of the revenue forgone payment in its comparable funding bill.  Last year the House of Representatives similarly voted to refrain from making the revenue forgone payment to the Postal Service, but the Senate overrode that action in its appropriations measure, and the House ultimately agreed to restore the funding in conference.  NAPS and other groups will work to achieve the same result this time once again.

Triple-Play Postal Hearings Set for July

July will be a busy month on Capitol Hill for postal advocates.  Before Congress adjourns for the August recess, the House and Senate subcommittees that oversee the Postal Service will hold three oversight hearings on postal issues.  They'll fall during a one-week period in the second half of July.  NAPS will testify at or closely monitor each of these hearings:
Legislative Update on Bills Supported by NAPS

H.R. 728 - Veterans Reassignment Protection Act - The legislation, which would protect postal supervisors who are military veterans against arbitrary reassignments by the Postal Service and assure veterans preference employment protections, now has 41 cosponsors (we need more!).  To find out if your House Member is a cosponsor of H.R. 728, click here.   To send a message to your House Member encouraging him or her to become a cosponsor (it takes less than 2 minutes), click here, insert your zip code, and send the message.

H.R. 281 - Universal Right to Vote by Mail Act - The bill ensures the right to vote by mail in federal elections.  It now has 61 cosponsors.  To find out if your Member of the House of Representatives is a cosponsor, click here.  Again, to send a message to your House Member telling him or her to become a cosponsor, click here, insert your zip code, and send the message.

Social Security Fairness:  H.R. 82, which would repeal the Government Pension Offset and the Windfall Elimination Provision Act, now has 319 cosponsors.  To assure that your House Member is a cosponsor, click here.   For cosponsor information on the 33 cosponsors of the companion bill in the Senate, S. 206, click here.

Premium Conversion: There are now 210 cosponsors in the House for H.R. 1110, and 40 cosponsors in the Senate for S. 773. 

Bruce Moyer
Legislative Counsel to NAPS