POStPlan

The Postal Service is plowing ahead with its community meetings on POStPlan.  As of Friday, it had held 6,741 meetings, and it has scheduled an additional 474 through March 15.

That’s a total of 7,215 meetings — well more than half the list of 13,000 post offices that are seeing their hours reduced.  Before last week, implementation was complete at about 2,800 post offices.  On Saturday, another 737 joined the list, bringing the total number of post offices that have seen their hours reduced to over 3,500.   (The weekly meeting lists are posted on the USPS website here; you can see the entire list as a table here and spreadsheet here.  The implementation dates can be found here and here.)

About 3,500 of the meetings were held at the local post office.  These are usually rural post offices with small lobbies, so many of the meetings have been held with patrons crowded together and standing up.

Not that the meetings have lasted very long.  There's not much to talk about.  The decision to reduce the hours was made almost a year ago, and what the new hours will be comes as an announcement, not a matter for discussion.  There’s no need for a lot of talk about the options because there aren’t any.  It’s either reduce the hours or close the post office.

[View larger map]

The meetings are really just an opportunity for the Postal Service spokesperson to drive home the point that the agency is losing $25 million a day and billions every year so it must make cuts in service like reducing the hours.  

The local newspaper dutifully repeats what the Postal Service has said.  In most articles, there’s also a quote or two from citizens saying they're concerned about how reducing the hours will hurt some members of the community but it's better than losing the post office altogether.  The headlines say that the post office has been “spared” or “saved" or "will stay open" — as if closing it were really a possibility, even though virtually none of the 13,000 POStPlan post offices will close.

When the Postal Service witness for POStPlan, Jeffrey Day, was questioned by the Postal Regulatory Commission for its advisory opinion on POStPlan, he testified that while post offices would be reviewed annually to see if they needed to be upgraded or downgraded based on their revenues and workload, the meetings would not be repeated because "community meetings are very expensive."  When asked how much the Postal Service had budgeted for the surveys and meetings, he said he "didn't have that number offhand," and he couldn't even say if it was in the millions of dollars.

One wonders how much money the Postal Service has spent on these seven thousand meetings (with another six thousand to go).  Whatever they cost, it was a waste of money, at least in terms of getting feedback from citizens.  The outcome never depended on surveys and meetings.  The decisions were made in postal headquarters long before an average American weighed in.

But that's not what the meetings are about.  They are a publicity strategy to make it seem that the Postal Service is “listening” to its customers.  (The page on the USPS website about the POStPlan meetings is titled "We're listening.")

Even more, the meetings serve as a staged public relations event designed to get a message out: The Postal Service is hemorrhaging  billions, and the public must endure cuts in service if the agency is to survive.  

The meetings go hand in hand with the Postmaster General's trip to Montana last May — a publicity tour to show he was "listening" to people in small towns who were concerned about their post office closing.  (At the time, the PMG had already decided not to close post offices and to do POStPlan instead.)

The Postal Service has been doing a great job controlling the message.  We hear constantly about how everyone is using the the Internet and email, how declining mail volumes are pushing the agency deeper and deeper in debt, and how management has no choice but to reduce costs by whatever means necessary — closing plants and slowing down the mail, ending Saturday delivery, shifting over to cluster boxes, cutting hours at the post office.  

We don't hear anything about the possibility that these service cutbacks are actually about keeping postal rates down for large business mailers and dismantling the country's postal system so that corporate interests can grab a bigger piece of the pie.  

When you consider how much it would have cost to place ads in thousands of community newspapers and on hundreds of local TV channels, the Postal Service has probably found a bargain.  Whatever they cost to hold, the POStPlan meetings have provided great free publicity.  They were a perfect way to control the message.  And that’s probably what postal management was thinking when it decided to hold them. 

(Photo credit: POStPlan meetings in Cambridge, Illinois and Bushland, Texas)

The Postal Service has already held over 5,400 community meetings for POStPlan, and it has scheduled another 860 for the rest of January and the first week of February.  Within a few weeks, some 6,340 post offices will see their hours reduced to six, four, even two hours a day.  That’s nearly half of the 13,000 post offices on the list. 

The Postal Service began actual implementation of the reduced hours at over one thousand post offices on January 12.  It has scheduled implementation at another 2,250 offices during the rest of January and February: January 26 (944), February 9 (833), and February 23 (475).

The Postal Service has said on numerous occasions that it would implement POStPlan “gradually,” over a two-year period, and it will probably take that long to reduce hours at all 13,000 offices.  But the Postal Service is wasting no time on cutting the hours at the first half of the list.  

A spreadsheet with all the meetings held or scheduled so far is here, a table here, and a map here; the lists come from the USPS website, here.  The implementation list is on the USPS website here; a spreadsheet is here; a table, here; and map, here.

Some 3,100 of the meetings have been held (or will be) at the local post office itself, typically in the lobby.  Since almost all POStPlan offices are small rural post offices, that’s usually meant an uncomfortably crowded space and standing room only, making it difficult to have a meaningful discussion.

Not that it’s really mattered.  The meetings don’t mean much anyway.  Their ostensible purpose is to get feedback from customers about the options on the table — close the office or keep it open at reduced hours — and about their preferences with respect to what hours the office will be open after they’re reduced. 

But the options are meaningless.  Over 99.8 percent of time, the decision has been to keep the office open.  And while customers can use the survey to specify their preferences about the particular hours of operation, by the time the meeting is held (a few weeks after the survey), the Postal Service has already determined what the new hours will be.  

The meeting thus becomes simply an opportunity for the Postal Service spokesperson to explain how much money the agency is losing (always due to the Internet) and to make people thankful their post office is just having its hours reduced instead of closing completely. 

These 6,300 post offices are the first to have their hours reduced because they have a postmaster vacancy.  About 3,000 of them had a vacancy before POStPlan was even announced last year.  Another couple of thousand saw their postmaster retire when the Postal Service offered buyout incentives last summer.  The remainder developed a vacancy when the postmaster transferred to another office, usually to take a spot that opened when its postmaster retired. 

Things have been especially tough for those postmasters who decided to transfer.  They’ve had to sever ties with their communities, say good-bye to customers they've known for many years, and try to explain to them why this is happening.  Many will also need to relocate their families or else face a ridiculously long commute.  This is their reward for their dedication to the Postal Service.

There will be more postmaster vacancies developing as more POStPlan postmasters leave to take new, hopefully more secure positions.  At this point it appears that about 7,000, perhaps as many as 8,000, of the 13,000 POStPlan post offices will see their hours reduced before the winter ends. 

That leaves about 5,000 or 6,000 POStPlan offices where the postmaster is staying put.  They can remain in their jobs until September 2014, at which time they will be released from the Service, and their post offices will finally have their hours reduced.

All of this could change, however.  A few days ago, the USPS Board of Governors directed the Postmaster General to accelerate steps to cut costs and to revisit the five-year plan, presumably to add even more cuts.  Perhaps they’ll find a way to speed up implementation of POStPlan, or maybe they’ll change the criteria and reduce hours even more.  Or maybe they’ll abandon POStPlan and resume last year’s push to close post offices.

PRC Chairman Ruth Goldway has already expressed concern about the directive.  If the Postal Service moves too quickly, says Goldway, "there may be people who are without Post Office access at all."  That could mean that “the quality of service and the Postal Service's obligation to universal service will be damaged in some way.”

Many customers feel that this has already happened.  The news is filled with reports about POStPlan meetings where the public has expressed its anger and frustration toward the reduced hours and the likelihood that the reduction will eventually lead to closure.

In Greenwood, Virginia, for example, the POStPlan meeting was held a few days ago, and the community packed a local church to contest the plan.  Scott Peyton, Greenwood Citizens Council chairman, spoke for many people across the country when he told the Postal Service representative, “Our strong encouragement is to leave us alone.  Our post office operates efficiently, is part of our community, and makes a profit.” 

Peyton complained that the Postal Service wrote the survey for a pre-determined outcome, and he expressed concern that the reduced hours were only the beginning.  “I think it’s a killing-you-softly domino effect,” Peyton said. “They say that they aren’t going to close you, then they take measures that will affect you financially, and then they say that they are going to come back a few years later and review you.”  

“How in the world can our revenue increase if they’re reducing the hours that our window can perform retail sales?” Peyton asked.  “USPS has told us that they don’t have the luxury of looking down the road,” he added. “They’re cutting off their nose to spite their face.”

County Supervisor Ann H. Mallek also had a few words to share with the Postal Service representative.  “You’re making changes universally because it might be more convenient for you and might deliver a short-term success rate, but there’s long-term degradation of services,” said Mallek.  “We are trying to help people succeed and improve their economic prosperity, and we’re being sabotaged by this effort that you all are making to save your own skin….  You’re throwing under the bus this very profitable rural post office.”

Photo credits: Greenwood, VA meeting; Greenwood post office (Google streetviews)

The post office in Great Cacapon, West Virginia, is on the POStPlan list, and in January its hours will be reduced to six a day.  A nonprofit organization named AdvoCare has filed a formal Complaint with the Postal Regulatory Commission challenging the Postal Service’s decision to cut the hours. 

The Complaint finds several faults with how POStPlan is being implemented, but its main point is that the Postal Service is presenting communities with a false choice.  The survey says customers must choose between having the window hours reduced or having the post office undergo a discontinuance study, but it is clear that the study can lead to only one outcome — a Final Determination to close the office.  By making the outcome a fait accompli, the Postal Service turns a discontinuance study into an empty gesture and abrogates its responsibilities under Title 39.  Communities are left with no real choice at all.

Given that the Commission's advisory opinion has already given the green light to POStPlan, it’s not likely that the Complaint will have much of an impact on the Postal Service's plans to cut hours at 13,000 post offices.  But the Complaint raises some serious issues with POStPlan that weren’t addressed during the PRC’s advisory opinion process, so it will be interesting to see what happens now that the plan is back before the Commission.

The AdvoCare Complaint is here; the Postal Service’s Motion to Dismiss the complaint is here, and AdvoCare’s Response to the Motion to Dismiss, here.

Standing room only

Because there’s a postmaster vacancy at the Great Cacapon post office, it was among the first offices being reviewed under POStPlan.  Hundreds of people responded to the survey, and over 150 attended the public meeting in October.  It was standing room only, and no one was very happy about seeing the hours reduced and their fill-in postmaster leaving.

The post office has been operated by Rick Dunn, a supervisor from neighboring Berkeley Springs, for quite some time — long enough for the folks in Great Cacapon to come to appreciate his services.  As reported in the local news, many small businesses use the post office just because Dunn is so knowledgeable.  "He knows the answer to everything I've ever asked,” said one customer.  “If he has to leave, I won't send packages through the post office anymore."

Dunn has helped out seniors, shut-ins, and the entire community.  One resident said Dunn had called in a wellness check on a senior he hadn't seen in a few days. It turned out the man needed medical attention, and Dunn may have saved his life.  The people in Great Cacapon know that it's not likely they'll get the same sort of attention from the part-time worker who replaces Mr. Dunn when the hours are reduced in January.  

One of the people at the meeting was Keith DeBlasio, the director of a nonprofit called AdvoCare, which works on reducing crime through criminal justice reform.  Mr. DeBlasio was so disturbed by what he heard at the meeting — and by the lack of responsiveness of postal officials he contacted after the meeting — that he decided to submit a formal Complaint to the PRC. 

Mr. DeBlasio may not be an expert on postal matters, and he probably wasn’t a close follower of the evolution of POStPlan over the past year, but his Complaint seems to have struck a nerve.   The Postal Service has filed a very thorough Motion to Dismiss, packed with precedents and quotations, that runs to twenty-three pages.  (The Postal Service's Request for an Advisory Opinion was only ten pages, and the testimony of the Postal Service's only witness, Mr. Jeffrey Day, was twenty-four.)

The Motion to Dismiss is also surprisingly aggressive in its tone, especially when you consider that POStPlan has already been approved by the PRC.  Perhaps the Postal Service is concerned that the Complaint will give the Commission a second chance to examine some important questions about the legitimacy of POStPlan

After nearly two years of planning — going back to early 2011, when the Postal Service first proposed changing the rules about staffing post offices without postmasters and redefining "consolidation" — today POStPlan became a reality.  November 17 is the official implementation date for the first group of 500 post offices on the list.  Starting Monday, they'll be open six, four, or just two hours a day.  Over the next few months, thousands more will see their hours cut.  For 13,000 small towns across America, having the post office open a full eight hours a day will soon become a thing of the past.  

The Postal Service has been issuing weekly updates on the progress of POStPlan Implementation.  You can download a spreadsheet with the most recent data from the USPS website here.  An online Google doc spreadsheet is here; a Fusion table, here; and a map, here.  As of November 15, here’s where things stand.

Of the 13,000 post offices set to be reviewed under POStPlan, 5,932 are currently being studied, and a decision has been made to reduce the hours at 2,784 of them.  In only eleven cases has the Postal Service decided to proceed with a discontinuance study: Knoxboro, New York; Hayesville, Iowa; Seville, Georgia; Paoli, Colorado; Lees Creek, Ohio; Perks, Illinois; Fowlerton, Indiana; New Trenton, Indiana; Collins, Wisconsin; Gracey, Kentucky, and Cerulean, Kentucky.  There's no explanation yet on why these were selected for closure rather than reduced hours.

Over four thousand meetings have already taken place, and another thousand will take place over the next three weeks.  The following table breaks things down in more detail.

To avoid causing problems during the busy holiday mailing season, the Postal Service has declared a moratorium on implementing POStPlan for the period November 18 to January 12.  The public meetings, however, will continue through much of this period, except for December 8 through January 6.

The Postal Service has said it will not implement POStPlan at an office so long as a full-time postmaster is in place, so it has begun with offices where there is a vacancy.  

About 2,200 POStPlan offices had a postmaster vacancy when POStPlan was announced last May.  Around 2,000 POStPlan postmasters probably took the retirement incentive in July.  (A total of 4,000 postmasters retired, but the Postal Service hasn't provided a breakdown, so that's just a guess.)  Some 1,600 POStPlan postmasters probably transferred to a new position a few months ago (the first list of openings came out on May 25).  Another couple of thousand, maybe more, transferred to a position that opened up thanks to the retirements (the second list came out at the end of August).

That adds up to something like 8,000 offices with a postmaster vacancy.  Some 6,000 are currently under review, so another two thousand or more will be added to the implementation list sometime soon.

The Postal Service has repeatedly said that it would take two years to implement POStPlan, and that the process would be "gradual."   But not too gradual, it seems.  By next June, it would appear that over 8,000 post offices will have had their hours reduced — over 60 percent of the 13,000 offices on the list.  

Implementation may slow down at that point, since there won't be many postmaster vacancies opening up — until September 2014, when all those POStPlan postmasters who haven't moved to a new position will lose their jobs and the last of the offices will see their hours cut.  

The Postal Service just posted a loss of nearly $16 billion for the fiscal year.  Over $11 billion of it was due to the health care prefunding mandate; the remaining $5 billion was due to declining mail volumes.  The Postal Service says POStPlan will save about $500 million a year – about 3 percent of this deficit.  Considering how the Postal Service ballparked its numbers and didn't include anything for lost revenue due to shorter hours, even that estimate of annual savings is probably optimistic.  The actual savings will more likely be around $300 million — less than 2 percent of the deficit.  

So there you have it.  Some 13,000 communities suffer the loss of their postmaster and see the hours at their post office cut to a few hours a day, and for what?  So the Postal Service can make a virtually unnoticeable dent in its deficit.  

One can't help but wonder, could the travesty of POStPlan have been avoided if Congress had simply eliminated the unnecessary health care prefunding mandate and returned the FERS overpayments?  Looks like we'll never know the answer to that one.

(Photo credit: Post offices in New Trenton, Indiana, and Fowlerton, Indiana, both among the 11 post offices that will be studied for discontinuance.)

In order to implement POST Plan — the plan to reduce hours at 13,000 post offices — the Postal Service will be holding a public meeting at each impacted post office.  

The Postal Service has already scheduled 1,518 public meetings for the two-week period October 8 through October 19.  Around 600 are scheduled for the week of October 8, and over 900 for the week of October 15.  A list of the meeting times and places is here; a spreadsheet version is here, a map here.  The list comes from the USPS website, here.  

Some 862 of the meetings are scheduled for the post office lobby.  Most of the POST Plan post offices are small, rural offices, so it's hard to imagine that most of these locations have much room for a meeting, but perhaps the Postal Service doesn't think many people will attend.

Half of the meetings have been scheduled for 4:00 p.m. or later.  The other half are scattered throughout the earlier part of the day, which will make it difficult or impossible for some people to attend.  They will have to content themselves with having their voices heard through the survey.

The Postal Service has said that it would begin the implementation process for POST Plan with those post offices that currently have a postmaster vacancy.  About 3,000 offices had a vacancy when the POST Plan list was first published back in May.  Since then, some 4,000 postmasters have taken the retirement incentive, so perhaps another 2,000 vacancies are opening up.  Many postmasters are transferring to other positions, so even more positions will become vacant soon.

In the meantime, there are probably around 5,000 postmaster vacancies right now.  At a rate of 900 meetings per week, it will take about six weeks to do meetings for all those post offices.  By then, over two thousand more vacancies should open up as POST Plan postmasters transfer to positions where postmasters have retired, and it will take another three weeks to do meetings at all of them.

It would appear, then, that the Postal Service plans to hold meetings for over 7,000 post offices — more than half the POST Plan list — between October 8 and mid-December — that is, unless the Postal Service decides to slow down on the meetings during the election and Christmas mailing season.  That may very well be the case.  The USPS website indicates that there will be meetings for four weeks, October 6 to November 2, but it says nothing beyond that.