Editor,
Last week, the U.S. Postal Service released its financial results for the fiscal third quarter of, and the first nine months of, 2015.
So far, things are looking good for fiscal 2015. While the Postal Service posted a small operating loss of $197 million for the third quarter, on a year-to-date basis, the agency had a $1.241 billion operating profit. This reflected a 23 percent increase in operating profit over the same time period from last year (which itself was a great year).
Shipping and package revenue, along with volume, has been nothing short of phenomenal. For the nine-month period ending June 30, 2015, and package revenue was up by 11 percent compared with the same period last year, and shipping and package volume was up by 14 percent compared with the same period last year.
For the nine-month period ending June 30, 2015, combined First-Class Mail and Standard Mail revenue was up 0.7 percent, compared with the same period last year, while volume was down 0.8 percent.
In 2006, Congress mandated that the Postal Service pre-fund retiree healthcare 75 years out and pay for it all over a decade. That annual $5.6 billion charge is the red ink – a manufactured crisis that Congress created and Congress can fix. No other federal agency or private company is required to pre-fund for even one year. Already, the Postal Service has more than $49 billion in the pre-funding account.
It’s time now for lawmakers to fix the fiasco they created.
Ronnie Roush – Letter Carrier – Carmel, Indiana