White House USPS 2021 Budget Cuts

From the President’s Budget For Fiscal Year 2021:

The Budget proposes reforms based on the recommendations of the President’s Task Force on the United States Postal System. The Task Force made recommendations for changes to governance, the Postal Service’s universal service obligation, pricing, cost allocation, operating costs, labor model, retiree health benefits, and revenue sources.

The Task Force also recommended provisions for strengthening regulatory oversight if the Postal Service is unable to meet its financial commitments. This proposal will restore solvency to the Postal Service and ensure that commitments to current and former employees are funded from business revenues rather than taxpayers.

The Budget proposes operational reforms to reduce costs and improve revenue, including: 1) changes to the rate cap to allow more flexible pricing for mail and packages that are deemed outside the universal service obligation or “nonessential”; 2) reducing operating costs through changes to delivery processing, mode, frequency, and increased use of private sector partners for processing and sortation, where appropriate; 3) more closely aligning Postal Service employee wages with those of other Federal employees; and 4) licensing access to the mailbox and providing additional Government services at retail locations.

The Budget also proposes Government-wide reforms to pensions and health insurance costs that are estimated to further reduce Postal Service operating costs. See the General Services Administration section of the Appendix for more information. In addition, the Budget proposes to reamortize the payments the Postal Service has not made to the Office of Personnel Management for retiree health benefits.

In total, the Budget estimates that these reforms will reduce the unified budget deficit by $94 billion over 11 years and result in on-budget savings of $97 billion as the Postal Service resumes statutory payments to on-budget accounts.

Click to read Executive Branch Budget: USPS, OIG, PRC