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Op-Ed: Postal leadership should embrace
innovation, not service cutbacks
By Ross Marchand | Taxpayers Protection Alliance
“Among nearly 13,000 underwater post offices, one-quarter are within
three miles of another post office and more than half are within five
miles.” |
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 For most Americans, depositing mail at the post
office doesn’t put too many miles on the odometer. In fact, there are more than
30,000 post offices across the country, and 95% of the population lives within
five miles of a post office.
Some of these post offices may soon stop offering comprehensive services to
consumers. Recently, advocacy group Save the Post Office released a map of the
first 144 offices that would lose carrier operations and see staff and service
cutbacks under Postmaster General Louis DeJoy’s “Delivering for America” (DFA)
plan. While it’s easy (lazy) to institute service cutbacks to save money, the
United States Postal Service (USPS) would be far better off embracing innovative
business arrangements instead. The Postmaster General needn’t sacrifice the
agency’s credibility in the name of solvency.
Americans first got a taste of USPS service cutbacks during the peak of the
pandemic. A perfect storm of carrier sick days, COVID-19 restrictions, and
trucker shortages resulted in delivery snafus and long lines at post offices.
There has since been a significant rebound in consumer service satisfaction and
delivery times, but this may all change again if post office consolidations
proceed as planned. According to the map provided by Save the Post Office, post
offices that will experience service cutbacks tend to be clustered around other
post offices slated for cutbacks. For example, 13 post offices in the area
around Gainesville, Florida, would have reduced operations under the current
plan. Similarly, 17 post offices in the area around Topeka, Kansas, would cut
back operations for consumers.
Post office rollbacks or even closures are often justifiable. A 2021 report by
the USPS Inspector General notes that, “Among nearly 13,000 underwater post
offices, one-quarter are within three miles of another post office and more than
half are within five miles.” America’s mail carrier could shutter thousands of
post offices that are losing money while maintaining easy access to nearby post
offices. The problem is that postal leadership is significantly paring back
operations in large clusters instead of singling out poorly performing offices.
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Even if the USPS could carry out a finely tuned closure/consolidation program,
there’s far more the agency can do to get back into the black. The USPS can save
money on carrier operations by taking a page from its private competitors and
contracting out some “last-mile” operations. Fortunately, the USPS does have a
program in place to contract out last-mile deliveries to private individuals and
shippers.
The agency sometimes uses its Contract Delivery Service (CDS) to compensate
private parties to get mail from Point A to Point B, helping the USPS fulfill
its universal service obligation. But, these contractor services only account
for a small portion of overall postal deliveries. CDS contractors deliver mail
to about 3 million delivery points per year, compared to about 160 million
delivery points overall across the country. These agreements with private
companies and individual contractors cost the agency approximately $400 million
annually, compared to more than $80 billion in total yearly USPS operating
expenses.
The USPS could also enter partnerships with companies with large retail
footprints to save on large and fixed infrastructure costs. The biggest
roadblock to this money-saving alternative is the power of postal unions. When
USPS and Staples kicked off a pilot program in 2013 to provide postal services
at hundreds of the retailer’s locations, the American Postal Workers Union
(APWU) cried foul and launched protests and legal actions against the agency.
The promising partnership, which lowered costs for the USPS and expanded options
for consumers, was finally killed by a 2016 National Labor Relations Board
ruling instigated by the powerful union.
Future pilot programs could realistically pick up where the USPS-Staples
partnership left off. But, this would take sustained dialogue between the USPS,
its most powerful unions, and Congress to foster a compromise that would make
everyone happy. Despite the inevitable objections that would be raised to these
changes, retail partnerships and private contracting are far better alternatives
to the status-quo of service slowdowns and cutbacks. The USPS must continue to
deliver for the American people even when the going gets tough.
Ross Marchand is a senior fellow for the Taxpayers Protection
Alliance.
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