Frank Lynn, Director of Postal Affairs, provides comments and insights into the latest article by Forbes covering the US Postal Reform Bill of 2022:
I believe that this is an objective article that notes the legislation’s highlights.
Corrects the horrendous financial effects of the 2006 Postal Accountability and Enhancement Act (PAEA) legislation. The Recession of 2008, the COVID Pandemic and the erosion of First Class mail volumes were not anticipated during its drafting. No other Federal Agency is burdened with the prepayment requirements of future medical coverage and retirement costs.
Requires the use of Medicare as the primary coverage vehicle for retirees.
Clears the USPS’ unpaid liabilities on ten prior years of non-payment of PAEA cost requirements.
Formalizes the requirement of six- day USPS delivery to all addresses. Previously, the statute had to be renewed annually as part of the bill which subsidizes the USPS mail
deliveries for approved nonprofit organizations, Matter for the Blind and Franked mail for Congressmen.
Development of a delivery dashboard to convey on-time mail performance based on internal processing scans of the Full Service Intelligent Mail barcode. Recall that the
PMG’s plan to standardize nationwide 5-day delivery of First Class mail and optimize the ground network performance was the catalyst of much angst. Initial transitional
issues and political interests caused controversial critical commentary. The goal was 95% on-time performance and the USPS is not quite there yet ( 87% to 91% for First Class).
Provides the USPS with some flexibility to experiment with expanded services at a national and local level.
Lastly it offered loosened qualification regulations for Periodicals newspapers to continue to qualify for heavily discount postage rates. Recall that the Postal Service’s roots initiated with servicing small local newspapers. Freeport’s shares those roots. Newspapers’ subscriptions have been decimated by a combination of the immediacy of digital news services, costs of paper, postage and manufacturing and the USPS focus away from manual processing of mail. Mail whose design causes manual sortation will receive delayed service.
Thank you, Frank Lynn, Director of Postal Affairs