Post office $2.8 billion in the red...

[posty 2,696]

http://www.breitbart.com/article.php?id=D9...;show_article=1

 

WASHINGTON (AP) - The Postal Service ended its fiscal year $2.8 billion in the red, battered by a faltering economy that cut the amount of mail being sent.

 

Postmaster General John Potter said the agency is making sharp cuts in hours and overtime but added there are no plans for layoffs. The mail being sent dropped by 9.5 billion items.

 

"We expect the new fiscal year to be another difficult one," Potter said, adding: "We're not panicking here."

 

The cost of sending packages will go up in January, and the annual increase in the cost of letter mail is still scheduled for May.

 

By cutting back on spending the post office had a net operating income of $2.7 billion in 2008, but still ended up in the red because of the requirement for a $5.6 billion payment to a health benefit fund for retirees.

 

Even so, the $2.8 billion loss was well short of last year's $5.1 billion postal deficit.

 

The Postal Service does not receive a tax subsidy for its operations

 

Potter welcomed recent reductions in the cost of fuel—a major expense for the post office—and said his agency is continuing to cut overtime and working hours as it seeks increase efficiency.

 

It has been offering early retirement, which has been accepted by 3,685 workers.

 

The cost of First Class postage went up to 42 cents in May and Potter said the annual increases for letters will continue to occur in May, with the increase amount being announced 90 days in advance. The increase is based on the rate of inflation.

 

For packages, however, rates will increase in January so the post office will be in step with its major competitors, which generally announce new rates in January, he said.

 

Planned rate increases are Express Mail, 5.7 percent; Priority Mail, 3.9 percent; parcel select, 5.9 percent; parcel return service, 5.3 percent and international shipping, 8.5 percent.

 

Potter said the agency plans to ask Congress to restructure the way it handles payments for retiree health care. A 2006 law requires the post office to create a fund to cover retiree health care, contributing several billion dollars annually for 10 years. At the same time the agency is paying about $2 billion annually for retiree health care.

 

The postmaster general said the agency would like to start funding retiree health care from the new account, which it will continue to build up. But it would like to eliminate the need to pay the extra $2 billion for current costs.

 

Standard mail, mostly advertising and the largest mail category at 99.1 billion items, was down 4.3 percent in 2008. First class mail dropped 4.8 percent to 91.7 billion cards and letters and periodicals fell 2.2 percent to 8.6 billion.

 

Overall, the post office had revenue of $74.9 billion, operating expenses of $72.1 billion and a health benefit fund payment of $5.6 billion for a net loss of $2.8 billion. The fiscal year began Oct. 1.

 

"This has been a very challenging year for the Postal Service," chief financial officer H. Glen Walker told the agency's governing board on Thursday.

 

Maybe if they would lower the price of the stamps and such, more people would send mail through them...

 

Of course still much easier to pay bills online...

[KSB2424 3,148]

online bill pay

email

 

[buffalobillsffl2003 0]

someone has to pay for a dockworker's 6-figure salary.

 

[edjr 6,580]

USPS is nearly obsolete.

 

They suck balls at shipping packages, their tracking is a joke. Even DHL ships better than them.

 

Sure some people still mail cards and letters, but only a few times a year, in about 10 years when everyone is paying bills online the USPS will be no more. We can just use UPS or Fedex to ship our cards and letters.

[Patriotsfatboy1 1,432]

See, you are not looking at it the right way.

 

They are ONLY $2.8B in the red. Most government entities are much less efficient and lose even more money than this. It is all about perspective. HTH.

[BiPolarBear 485]

USPS is nearly obsolete.

 

They suck balls at shipping packages, their tracking is a joke.

 

I sent $1,500 to a guy in Florida thru pay pal. He sent me two guitars via USPS parcel post w/tracking numbers. For days the tracking showed that he had made the labels but had not taken the packages to the post office. I finally went down to my local post office and after a while they figured that the packages had been recieved, but they had not hit Texas yet. I forget exactly how many day it took to arrive, probably about a week. When the guitars were sitting in my house, the tracking numbers showed they had arrived at the local P.O., bt had not been delivered. UPS next time fer sure.

[Isotopes 1]

They should just get in line for free money. Problem solved.