I See Why the Post Office Is in Trouble.

i live in a very small town with a tiny, tiny PO and a very few very, very overworked employees.
the USPS is in trouble because of mandated retirement programs, not because of mismanagement. it was one of the few efficient branches of the government until congress got interested and started 'helping.'
:( khairete
S.

I completely agree with everything OneandDone posted. And even worse than all of that is that the USPS is not allowed to close any Post Offices without Congressional approval. That means that if the USPS realizes it's losing money having two fancy offices just 3 miles apart from one another, they can't simply close one and consolidate. Nope. They have to hold public hearings, ask for public comment, and then get approval.

I do think that there's a lot of fat that could be trimmed at the management levels, but the vast majority of the financial problems were caused by government regulations (keep post offices open, prefund retirement, etc.).

And remember: not a single tax dollar goes towards moving the mail. It's all funded by stamps and other fees.

I'll just re-post my answer to your last "why is the post office in trouble" question:

The United States Postal Service, an independent agency of the United States government responsible for providing postal service in the United States is O. of the few government agencies explicitly authorized by the United States Constitution. (CONSTITUTION, anyone?)
And yet....

Many might be surprised to learn that the U.S. Postal Service is not in financial trouble. It isn’t in debt or losing money. Some would probably be shocked to learn that it costs taxpayers exactly zero dollars, as it is and has always been a self sustaining enterprise. The trouble miring our beloved Postal Service is the disfavor of a pro-corporate anti-government (when it is convenient) political party. Indeed the Postal Service’s problems are rooted in purely political machinations.

In 2006, the lame duck Republican-controlled Congress passed the Postal Accountability and Enhancement Act, requiring the U.S. Mail to pre-fund its retirement health care benefit account 75 years ahead of time. This is the only Federal Agency saddled with this requirement. Indeed the Postal Service is pre-funding retirement benefits for employees it hasn’t even hired yet. Why can’t the service simply raise its rates to pay for this burden? The Act also restricts the USPS from increasing its rates. How’s that for good business sense?

As O. might imagine, the USPS is objecting to this, and says its upcoming 5.5 billion dollar health fund payment might just be O. delivery it has to make late. Late, as in not early. Instantly some Republicans have seized on the issue they created and have begun to suggest that the Postal Service cut services and lay off workers. This is a strange recommendation for politicians who came into office on a job creation platform. But then, postal workers are guilty of a mortal sin, they’re unionized! The American economy is just now recovering from a devastating recession caused, at least in part, by short sighted Republican policies. Now they’ve burdened our mail service with a unique requirement and are using that requirement to call for reduced services and layoffs.

Right on cue are the additional suggestions that the Postal Service be done away entirely, since it isn’t running efficiently, and allow private corporations to deliver our mail. This would, of course, precede the privatization of our schools, prisons, and military. O. might come to the conclusion that privatization of our mail service was in mind when the 2006 Act was passed in the first place: place unworkable requirements on the agency and watch it crumble.

The U.S. Postal Service is run efficiently and without any burden to the American taxpayer. It is the largest employer of military veterans. It is a Godsend for mom and pop businesses all over the country, not to mention the average person wishing to send a letter. The Service has a proud history and shouldn’t fall victim to the political maneuverings of a political party.

(J., Keep in mind, many post office buildings were built during the New Deal in the 30's sooooooo...that make a lot of the buildings 80+ years old. When it's time, it's time. It's also an issue of function, service and convenience.)

One place like this that I thought the same thing about, I later learned was a police station. They built a new police station, and the post office took over the old police station. That was how they ended up with that nice big building.

Now my question is why the police had that nice big building in that little town...

Added - Oh, and J., I found this from another poster - here's another reason why the post office is doing badly:
The US Post Office is required to pre-fund 75 years worth of future retiree health benefits in just 10 years. No other agency or company in America is required to pre-fund these benefits.

Why did the government put THAT requirement into place? It's almost like they wanted the post office to fail... reminds me of the old saying that everyone likes to rag "I'm from the government and I'm here to help..."

Dawn

You will find that that fancy location....Probably still did not come close to costing what they have to pay in ''Ghost'' Pensions........Now that is truly what is bankrupting the Postal service.

A building is a building.....You dont know what was there before they moved in....

That building didnt bust them.........You should see the brand new state of the art School bus lot facility our district just got.............That takes up like four City blocks.........When we are cutting over 2 million dollars from the district budget in the coming year.

My point is....Wasteful spending is every where......You dont get to pick and choose where they do it...The Pension rules need to come off the Postal Service...

anyone who truly understands the corruption that is coming out of the Gov't understands it is nothing the Postal Service is doing on their own fault....It was a Gov't thing that is killing them.......You dont see the Federal Gov't insisting on having 75 years of pension pay ready for the people who will receive it in the future.....But have to have it NOW.

A building is a Building.....Corruption is Corruption.......I dont see the building doing anything as corrupt as our gov't and congress.

Thank you to the SMART and INFORMED moms on here that explained the TRUTH about the Post office..

OneAndDone
Suz t.
Tat2d~2~B~amuse
Dawn .
Leigh R.

Please moms and dads, pay real attention to what is going on.. Do not assume the worst of all of the people in Govt.. The truth is there, just takes time to educate yourselves.

I don't have a fancy post office (ours is actually too small for our community) but I do have a postal story that still makes me shake my head.

We have walking letter carriers in our area of town who drive their postal trucks to our neighborhood and walk from there. Our guy, who already was slow as molasses, got a DUI and couldn't drive anymore.

Instead of reassigning him for the two years he didn't have a license, the post office had another postal employee drive him to our neighborhood where HE would deliver the mail and SHE would sit in the truck for several hours and read a good book.

Crazy, huh.

Don't blame the postal service for those big buildings. Blame your members of Congress. They are the ones who fight to get federal buildings and postal facilities built in their districts, so money is going to contractors in their districts and jobs (such as they are) go to people in their districts.

Your district.

So contact your members of Congress if you think this is pork-barrel spending, but don't rag on the Postal Service. USPS knows this kind of thing makes them look awful at a time when they're considering shutting down a lot of rural post offices. But they don't have full control over their own building plans.

I have seen that. Another thing you might have noticed, luxurious DPS offices. All they do is drivers licenses. How many drivers licenses could people possibly need in that town.
Cut to the thriving metropolis of DFW that I live in. Our government facilities were built in the 1950s. They are bunker looking, windowless concrete buildings. In Grand Prairie our drivers license office is in a strip mall next to the WIC office. Every government facility here feels like the welfare office. Dirty, dingy, old, and crowded.
All I can surmise is there is x amount of tax dollars allotted and spent. The smaller towns dont need the money to go as far as we need it to here in the big city. We must be spreading our allottment over many more resources - that or its lining someones pockets!

No - we live in the middle of the city - just a hop & skip from downtown... our post office is about 4 years old, but only has 8 parking spots & is usually busy, you have to wait for a parking spot sometimes. But it is on the chopping block and they have talked about closing it, because there is a downtown main post office with no parking within 5 miles of ours. I have never been to the main post office which is less then 1 mile from my house, because I don't want to deal with downtown traffic and don't want to pay $3.00 to park to buy stamps or mail a box of something. So, I go to the branch which is about 3 miles from my house - it takes less time to get to it (no traffic and less lights) & just keep hoping they won't close it... so far they have post-poned it's closing for about 2 years now. Maybe they will continue to leave it alone!!!

I agree they have created their own demise.
I live in a small, rural town, we have a small rural post office.
The neighboring town built a much larger facility, it too, is a small rural town now sporting a fancy post office. It's only 3 miles away from my town. My guess is that the fancy post office is going to swallow my towns post office within the next year. Who needs two post offices 3 miles apart? And the cost of stamps continues to climb.
Another example of bad planning and management of our money. And those that will suffer from the aftermath are the employees of the entity that at one time they were proud to work for.
When you think about Social Security and Welfare going to the automated plastic card system here of late, that alone, took many, many pieces of mail away from the postal service to deliver. Watching the evolution of society is quite interesting if not entertaining.

I do live on one of those small texas hill country towns with a nice post office! For what it's worth, that post office doesn't just service that town but everyone in the area. My subdivision has over 300 residents but we're not in city limits - that post office in that tiny town is out closest, but also a 30 minute drive. There are several subdivisions and ranches like mine all around that town, and we all use that one post office. So sometimes there's more to it than meets the eye.

Nope. My little town of 76 people (year 2000) has a very itty bitty post office that's unchanged since 1950. I can call my postmaster and call her by her first name. One person works there at any given time.

That's our government for you.

Well on the bright side they closed the post office close to my office that never had customers. By closed people can't come in and do business but they still have the staff in there doing nothing and are renting the space....

That is the opposite of where I live. The closest Post Office to me is a crappy run down trailer that rattles and shakes whenever a train passes (it is almost on top of the tracks). There is only one person that works inside and it gets incredibly busy, they also close the office entirely for lunch breaks.

I figure the Post Office has no money because the feds are putting it toward something else. I still get just as much mail as I used to (well more now that I have more bills to pay). Maybe they are not sending as many packages as they used to, I prefer UPS or FedEx because I know it will get there in a timely manner (like 2 to 3 days) and not take a year for delivery. There is a reason they call it snail mail.

Just another example of wasteful spending on the gov'ts part. Ridiculous. I live in a small town and we don't have a huge post office. Ours is small just as it should be.

Yes that is something that surprises me as well. However, if the USPS is not in any kind of financial trouble, then they need to put more focus on hiring. I understand that the people that deliver mail passed the selective service exam but the ones that deliver in the last 2 neighborhoods I have lived are/were the laziest, rudest, and unfriendly people I have ever dealt with. And when you call to complain they don't care.