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[/responsive]No, no and no. That pretty much sums up the Postal Regulatory Commission’s response to the USPS’s proposed rate adjustments in an order that was handed down on March 6.
“The Postal Regulatory Commission (PRC) has returned proposed rate adjustments to the U.S. Postal Service for review, saying the agency’s requests failed to comply with legal requirements, such as keeping increases under the inflation rate determined by the Consumer Price Index (CPI). The proposed rate changes covered Standard Mail, Package Services, and Periodicals,” wrote Al Urbanski in Direct Marketing News.
The commission gave the USPS until Friday, March 12 to respond. According to a news item posted on March 12 on Postcom.org, the USPS submitted their response at 4:25 p.m. that day, saying” As discussed in more detail below, the Postal Service has complied with each of the Commission’s directives and recommendations.”
The full PDF of USPS’s response is a full 74 pages including attachments. Among the issues addressed are discrepancies with nonprofit and commercial dropship discounts; revisions to the Standard Mail billing determinants; price equalizations of piece-rated presort discounts with pound-rate discounts. Lots of wording here, but it looks like the bottom line on this may be a 1.936% price hike for Standard First Class Mail.
Of course it remains to be seen what’s next. The new rates – old new or new new, we aren’t sure – are slated to go into effect at the end of April. So we suspect this isn’t the end of the wrangling.
We’ll keep you posted. Pun fully intended.