Thanks to the always informative and irreverent Dead Tree Edition for letting us know that we’ve been added to “Printing’s Best Blogs”:

The new Web site Printing’s Best Blogs officially launched today with Dead Tree Edition as one of the three featured “Mailing/Postal” blogs, the second such honor this blog has attained in recent months… my little blog (average of just under 1,000 visitors daily) is in good company. Both of the other featured postal blogs — Courier, Express, and Postal Observer and Postalnews Blog — have great track records and published dynamite stories today on post office closings.

According to the site, “‘Printing’s Best Blogs’ is a compilation of posts on topics of interest to graphic arts professionals. Bloggers from the Printing Impressions/PIworld.com, In-plant Graphics and packagePRINTING magazine websites are featured, supplemented by links to blogs from outside sources.”

via Dead Tree Edition.

The press has been full of stories about the pending closure of 2,000 mostly small, rural post offices across the country. As Alan Robinson pointed out yesterday, however, the list of potential closures that accompanied the Washington Post story on the closures appeared to consist entirely of urban “stations and branches” rather than actual post offices.

So what’s the real story? Is the USPS closing small rural offices, or just eliminating redundant branches in over-served urban areas? As with all things postal, the answer is complicated. The first question that arises is “what’s the difference between a post office and a station or branch”? To the average postal customer, of course, there is no difference. To the postal service, there’s a big difference- it’s easier to close a station than to close a post office.

But if stations and branches are just satellites of nearby post offices, what’s the big deal? Consider the Boston District- until it was expanded to cover most of Eastern Massachusetts a few years ago, the old Boston District included most of the metro Boston area inside the Route 128 beltway- roughly a 10-15 mile radius. It served over a million customers, and operated dozens of post offices- at least as far as those customers were concerned. To the postal service however, there were only two post offices (and two postmasters) in the entire district- Boston and Cambridge. While it might say “United States Post Office” on the buildings in Quincy, Stoneham or Newton, the USPS considered them merely branches of the Boston Post Office.

How can that be? Why do cities with 100,000 or more residents have no “real” post office? The answer lies deep in postal history- the late 19th century to be exact- here’s what an official USPS history has to say:

Stations were established not only to keep pace with cities’ population growth but also when formerly independent Post Offices were discontinued and converted to stations of a larger nearby Post Office. Sometimes this was done to provide free mail delivery to customers, since initially residents of only the most populous cities were eligible for free delivery. On July 1, 1863, when free city delivery began, six Post Offices were discontinued and converted to stations of the New York Post Office.

Around the same time, six Post Offices were consolidated with the Philadelphia Post Office. In the 1870s, more than a dozen Boston-area Post Offices were discontinued and converted to stations “within delivery of that office.” Postmasters of the discontinued Post Offices were given the option of becoming station superintendents.

The reality, then, is that whether you’re served by a post office or by a more easily closed station or branch has nothing to do with current demographics and economics, and everything to do with Civil War era politics. Contrast the situation in Boston with the town of Uxbridge, 40 miles to the west. Uxbridge, with a population of just over 11,000, has three post offices, each with its own postmaster. Two of them, Linwood and North Uxbridge, are separated by 8/10ths of a mile. Similar examples exist all across the country. All of which simply shows that there really is no practical, meaningful distinction between a post office, a station, and a branch.

Bear that in mind when you read items like this one from the Prescott AZ Daily Courier:

Postal Service Spokeswoman Joanne Veto said they are looking to shutter 2,000 stations and branches this year.

Unlike post offices, Veto said the postal service is looking to close the stations and branches which don’t have letter carriers, process mail and usually only have a retail counter and some post office boxes.

The Linwood office mentioned above has no letter carriers, and “only a retail counter and some post office boxes”. But it’s a post office!

It’s worth noting that Ms Veto’s statement referred to closures planned for “this year”. I think it’s premature to suggest that the USPS is only planning to close urban “stations” rather than rural post offices. The list accompanying the Washington post story cited above has only 677 locations, not 2,000. It’s also somewhat dated, having been prepared in 2009, and leaked by Congressional staffers. The USPS is presumably working on an updated list of potential closures. But even if the USPS is only targeting “stations” this year, it’s clear that rural post offices are next. The Post yesterday quoted the PMG as saying

Remember the Maytag repair man? He used to have the loneliest job in the world. We probably have about 5,000 postmasters that have the loneliest job in the world.

Remember- only a post office, not a station, has a postmaster. “Lonely” one or two person offices exist only in rural areas. The PMG’s comment clearly suggests that, assuming Congress gives the USPS the go-ahead, 5,000 rural post offices are next to face the chopping block.

A Camden man admitted Monday that he was part of a scheme to steal tax returns and Social Security checks from postal trucks and mailboxes last year. Gilbert Mercado, 36, appeared in U.S. District Court, where he pleaded guilty to stealing government property.

Mercado admitted he took part in an identity-theft scam that netted at least $88,000 from November 2009 through April. Charges are pending against Nathaniel Johnson, 42, and his wife, Lakisha Scanes, 29, who are scheduled to appear in court this week.

The trio allegedly stole tax-refund, unemployment, and Social Security checks from mailboxes and postal trucks and recruited drug addicts and prostitutes who were given fake identifications to cash the checks, authorities said. The recruits received a portion of the cash obtained. – Barbara Boyer

via Camden man admits role in postal-theft scheme | Philadelphia Inquirer | 01/25/2011.

One of the ways US Postal Service plans to cut expenses is the closure of 2,000 “money-losing” post offices. Sounds reasonable- any business would be eager to shed operations that aren’t pulling their weight. But it raises the question- how do you know when a post office is losing money?

You’d think it would be a simple matter of looking at the office’s books, and comparing revenue to expenses- and you’d be wrong. In most cases, very little of the revenue collected at a PO window or bulk mail unit actually pays for services provided by that post office. If you buy a book of Forever stamps your local office, and use them to mail letters from, say, your work location, the post office credited with all of the revenue has done none of the work you paid for. A bulk mail unit may collect millions every year for mailings that are promptly trucked to drop locations elsewhere, and never even get near the PO that pockets the revenue.

Almost half of the cost of mailing a letter is the labor intensive, delivery part. The rest is transportation and processing en route- none of which is normally handled by the office that collected your money.

So how do you decide if an office is losing money if you can’t just look at the office’s balance sheet? Unfortunately there is no easy answer. You could calculate a delivery “workload credit” by measuring delivery volume, but you’d need to do it by class and rate, and you’d also need to differentiate by delivery type- box, rural, walking route, etc. While the USPS does track that sort of data as part of the rate setting process, it doesn’t do it down to the individual post office level.

So how will the USPS come up with its list of PO’s to be closed? Your guess is as good as mine…

The union is “deeply disappointed” by the Postal Service’s announcement — via the Wall Street Journal — that it plans to close as many as 2,000 post offices beginning in March, APWU President Cliff Guffey said Monday.

The Postal Service did not specify the locations under consideration for closure, but said it is currently looking at offices “operating at a deficit.” The announcement comes after a brief lull in post office closings. The USPS originally announced in July 2009 that it planned to review more than 3,000 stations and branches for possible closure, but by early 2010, that number had dropped to 162 locations.

“Cutting service to the American people is not the solution to the Postal Service’s problems,” Guffey said. “The USPS can only remain relevant and resolve its financial difficulties if it improves and expands service.”

The cause of the Postal Service’s multi-billion dollar losses over the last few years is a little-known provision of the 2006 Postal Accountability and Enhancement Act, which requires the USPS to pre-fund future retiree healthcare liabilities, Guffey said. No other government agency or private business is required to pre-fund these obligations, which cost the USPS more than $5 billion annually.

Had it not been for these payments, the Postal Service would have experienced a $611 million profit over the past four years — despite the recent recession and online competition, he noted.

“Fortunately, there is a solution to this problem,” Guffey said. “The Postal Service should be permitted to use the surplus in its two pension funds to cover the cost of its future retiree health obligations.” Three independent actuarial studies have confirmed the USPS has a surplus of between $50 billion and $75 billion in its Civil Service Retirement System pension account, and $6 billion to $7 billion in its Federal Employees Retirement System account.

“Congress and the president must address this issue so that the U.S. Postal Service can remain viable and continue to serve the American people,” he said.

“This would not be a bailout,” Guffey added. “It would allow the USPS to use its revenue from postage to meet the congressional mandate, and it would not require any taxpayer contributions.”

Consumers Should Contact the Mailer, Not Their Carrier

The Postal Service wishes to clarify erroneous information in at least two recent news articles regarding requests for non delivery of mail with simplified addressing.

Consumers who do not wish to receive mail with a simplified address must make the request through the mailer, not their carrier. The mailer will then notify the local delivery unit through the same processes currently established for rural routes. Market research indicates that requests for non delivery will be minor.

Simplified Addressing enables a mailer to use mail delivery route information to reach target customer groups in specific areas without applying names or exact addresses.

On CBS’s Face the Nation this morning, failed presidential candidate John McCain displayed a rather breathtaking ignorance of how the US Postal Service is financed when he suggested that “going after sacred cows” like “the post office” was a key strategy in cutting back federal spending. McCain is apparently unaware of the fact that the USPS, whatever its current problems, pays its own way. Here’s what McCain said, word for word:

“The Post Office- a model of inefficiency- horse and buggies in days of when Internets and communications have basically replacing it more and more uh we have to go after the sacred cows”

McCain added that he could solve Social Security “on the back of an envelope”. McCain’s postal comments come at about the 8:20 mark:

From the Schenectady Daily Gazette:

A former postmaster in Albany County has pleaded guilty in federal court to stealing money from the U.S. Postal Service.

Labeeb Hameed, identified as the former postmaster at the Guilderland Center Post Office, pleaded guilty in U.S. District Court Jan. 14 to one count of theft of public money, a misdemeanor. He faces up to one year in federal custody at his scheduled April 15 sentencing.

As part of his plea, Hameed admitted he stole a total of $6,900 from the U.S. Postal Service and diverted it to his own use, according to the plea agreement filed in federal court.

Hameed had worked for the Postal Service since Sept. 17, 2005. By Oct. 1, 2009, he was assigned to work as postmaster at the Guilderland Center Post Office, according to the plea agreement.

Between his start date as postmaster and Feb. 11, 2010, Hameed was accused of taking the money.

He did so, according to the plea agreement, by removing money from the post office cash register. He also admitted to not depositing gross receipts on various occasions from customers into the cash register and keeping it for himself, and admitted that he issued money orders to his personal creditors without paying for the money orders.

Full story: Former Guilderland postmaster admits stealing from post office

A Hempfield woman pleaded guilty Thursday to a federal charge of presenting false claims against the United States while transporting mail with her trucking company.Barbara Ruffner, 39, of Luxor pleaded guilty in U.S. District Court in Pittsburgh before Senior Judge Maurice B. Cohill to two counts of presenting false claims.In March 2009, Ruffner was indicted by a federal grand jury, accused of failing to pay wage and fringe benefit rates as required through a federal mail-transporting contract she had received for her company, Ruffner Trucking.

via Hempfield trucker guilty in pay case – Pittsburgh Tribune-Review.

6 Day Delivery Position Paper Jan 2011