Walking Between the Law and Disaster

The Postal Regulatory Commission held its public forum on the Postal Service's Annual Compliance Review (ACR) yesterday.   The tenor of the discussion suggests that the Commission facing the challenge in this proceeding of walking the fine line between the law and disaster.

Simply put, the ACR proceeding raises two questions relating to the law.

• Did the Postal Service's ACR filing show that it complies with the requirements of 39 U.S. Code to 1) provide prompt, reliable, and efficient services to patrons in all areas[39 U.S.C. § 101 (a)] ; and 2) "to assure adequate revenues, including retained earnings, to maintain financial stability?" [39 U.S.C. § 3622(b)(5)].
  
• If it did not, what actions can or should the Postal Regulatory Commission take?

Did the Postal Service's ACR filing show that it complies with the requirements of 39 U.S. Code to 1) provide prompt, reliable, and efficient services to patrons in all areas; and 2) "to assure adequate revenues, including retained earnings, to maintain financial stability?

The first question  raises the question about both service quality and postal finances.   As service quality in transportation firms often depends on both efficient operations and financial strength focusing on the financial issues raised by this question is sufficient for understanding the challenge facing the PRC.

During the public forum no party other than the Public Representative directly indicated that they understood that the Postal Service did not generate sufficient revenue in 2009 to maintain financial stability.  Most parties requested that the PRC take the long view in looking at the question of financial stability.  This focus hinted that most parties believe that the Postal Service's business plan did provide service at a sufficiently efficient level to ensure that current rate levels generated adequate revenues to cover operating and legislatively mandated costs and generate retained earnings sufficient to maintain financial stability.

This sentiment is consistent with the public statements of the Postal Service's CFO Joe Corbett who stated in an interview with the Federal Times, "We will need [some assistance from Congress] or we will have difficulty paying all of our obligations this year. And going into next year, we might not have enough cash to operate. ... We are dangerously close to running out of cash."

If the Postal Service is insolvent, as the Federal Times headline implies, then by definition the Postal Service is not sufficiently efficient and does not generate sufficient revenue to maintain financial stability.    While the pension and retiree health care issues affect the question of financial stability the PRC is faced with the challenge of making a determination on this issue prior to any action by Congress.  Furthermore, the Postal Service has numerous other operating and market challenges that threaten its financial stability that go beyond its retiree benefit issues.

Given the information available to the Commission, both on the record and in the public domain,  it may have little choice but to come to the same conclusion that CFO Corbett and the Government Accountability Office have drawn, that it is not now a financially stable enterprise.   This question then forces it to address the second question listed above.  

What actions can or should the Postal Regulatory Commission take?

The Public Representative has presented a serious, but highly unpopular proposal to deal with the issue of financial stability.  It proposed that the Commission order the Postal Service institute rate increases in 2010 and 2011 that would cumulatively raise rates between a 6.3% and 21.2%.   The public representative noted that these increases would only return the Postal Service to break even.  In a recent post, I noted that a more realistic proposal that included retained earnings could raise rates between  25% and 42.6%.


The prospect of such large rate increases, clearly have large mailers concerned and created a conundrum for the Commission.  Large rate increases raise the possibility that large rate increases now would accelerate the diversion of mail to digital alternatives, worsening the prospects of financial stability in 2011 and beyond.   (Further study is needed to understand how rates, convenience of recipients, or communication cost-effectiveness drive the switch to digital delivery.)

Commissioner Dan Blair, in his comments raised procedural concerns that the ACR review could turn into a mini rate case.   His concerns reflect the intent of the PAEA to generally eliminate the traditional processes of setting postal rates.

So what options do he and other Commissioner's have if they join the consensus that the Postal Service is nearly insolvent?  It is this question that inspired the title of this post, "walking the line between the law and disaster."

In my view, the Commission can walk this line if it focuses less on the obvious, the Postal Service's near insolvency. Instead, it should use the ACR Review to advance a framework for discussing the options available to make the Postal Service a financially stable enterprise.   Then, the Commission would provide the Postal Service, postal stakeholders, and Congress a method to understand the financial impact of current law and how that law may need to change to create a financially stable enterprise.  To that end, I would suggest that parties to the proceeding and the  Commission focus on answering or at least asking the following questions.

• What financial goals indicate financial stability for the Postal Service?   We know that a financially insolvent Postal Service cannot pay its bills. We know that accounting break-even does not produce financial stability under any financial management theory. We do not know what financial goals a financially stable Postal Service should have, if accounting break-even is no longer appropriate.  Nearly all foreign posts have addressed this question first in examining reform of their postal policy.   Postal policy in the United States has never addressed this question.
  
• What level of retained earnings is sufficient?   Under the Postal Reorganization Act, accounting break-even was considered sufficient.  The 3-year rate cycle, combined by actions of Congress resulted in the Postal Service having almost no retained earnings.  In the near term, the Postal Service will soon need to end deferment of capital projects and maintenance, and improving operating efficiency will require capital expenditures to reduce the number of facilities and locate these facilities in locations that promote both cost efficiency and better service quality, transition costs to reduce the workforce at a rate at least equal to the impact of new technology and reduced mail volumes.   All of these actions cost money and there is no information on how much it would or could cost or the level of earnings necessary to implement these plans.
  
• What impact do restrictions on capital have on postal efficiency and service quality?   Currently capital spending is limited to what cash is available. The ability of any enterprise to rightsize its operations in the face of changing demand depends on the capital available to restructure its operations and provide incentives for excess employees to leave.  Showing how capital constraints are linked to cost efficiency and service quality could provide Congress with a better understanding as to how serious the current situation truly is.  

In focusing on these questions, the Commission can provide postal stakeholders with a greater understanding of the problems that the Postal Service faces without making these problems worse through imposing significant rate increases.  In this way, the PRC will use its authority in a way that forces Congress, the Postal Service and the Obama administration to seriously discuss the financial details of what it will take to ensure that the Postal Service is a financially stable enterprise far beyond 2010.

Who will brief Obama on the nature of the mail market?

At a You Tube forum, President Obama was asked, "'Mr. President, our deficit (national debt) is higher than ever at $12 trillion. Will you consider allowing the private sector to buy and take over the most troubled government-run agencies such as the U.S. Postal Service?"

The President's response suggests that his administration has left him poorly prepared for questions about the future of the Postal Service.   As questions about the future of the Postal Service will likely be on his plate over the next 9 months, it is time for his staff to do the legwork that will have him better prepared.   This post reviews information that he needs so that he can develop the level of understanding necessary to direct his staff in regards to future of the Postal Service.

Competition with FedEx and UPS
FedEx and UPS do not have the "high end" business-to-business portion of the postal market.  They serve the parcel side of the parcel market.   Yes they dominate business-to-business parcel delivery, but that is not to say that they do not also deliver a substantial volume of parcels to households, including households in the most rural sections of the Great Plain and Mountain West states.  They make these deliveries at a profit, just like they make profits in their business-to-business parcel deliveries.

Where FedEx and UPS compete with the Postal Service is in portions of the parcel market that fit the capability of the Postal Service's network.   The Postal Service is the specialist in handling, and more importantly delivering parcels under 5 pounds.  In this role, the Postal Service not only delivers small parcels that are dropped at a Post Office, but also an increasing share of the light weight ground parcels that FedEx and UPS picks up from its customers.  In fact, both FedEx and UPS are doing their best to convince their customers to shift light weight ground parcels to their products that use the Postal Service for delivery as a way to both lower the shipment price and provide service to that customer at a profit.  (It is not known what portions of the profits from delivering these parcels are received by UPS and FedEx or the Postal Service.)

The Postal Service is also the specialist in handling the parcel shipping needs of households. Households are a very tiny portion of the parcel delivery business.   Household shippers generate most of the Postal Service's heavier parcels.  The preference that household mailers have for the Postal Service makes the Postal Service an ideal provider of return services, as the new joint Postal Service-UPS service shows.  Households are the Postal Service's best customers because 100 years of marketing parcel delivery services to households creates a level of comfort that is tough to shake.  

Businesses in general use FedEx and UPS for their parcels, even if the Postal Service does the actual delivery, because the service levels and prices are better.  In addition, business customers find the characteristics of the customer relationship, from methods of payments to tracking capabilities, to the responsiveness of both telephone and in-person sales people are better at UPS and FedEx than the Postal Service.

Private Sector Firms Would Deliver Only the Most Profitable Business
The Postal Service's delivery competitors outside of the parcel market all focus on either the Postal Service's lowest priced or lowest margin products.  

For over 25 years, the Postal Service has faced competitors in the delivery of periodicals, a product that the Postal Service's cost system currently indicates are handled by the Postal Service at a loss.   The Postal Service's competitors deliver periodicals to every business address in metropolitan areas from Boston to Los Angeles, and in New York to buildings with doorman.  These businesses limit their deliveries to points where there is no mailbox and therefore no need to violate the Postal Service's exclusive right to the mailbox access.  The firms also offer a better quality service, as the periodicals and newspapers that they deliver are delivered earlier in the day than the Postal Service and their delivery service often includes replacement copies if the original is not received by the recipient.  The longevity of these firms is a testament that the private sector can deliver at a profit a product that the Postal Service delivers at a loss.

Today, Valassis announced the expansion of its use of private delivery of advertisements to households. Valassis will have the private carrier, CBA Industries, deliver what the Postal Service calls Enhanced Carrier Route (saturation mail) to addresses that do not receive the Newark Star Ledger.  CBA Industries is offering Valassis a service equal to or better than the Postal Service's lowest priced product for commercial advertising mail.

Finally, rural communities have always had shoppers and other free advertising focused journals delivered to boxes nailed to the post that is there for the mailbox.     These products could use the Enhanced Carrier Route products that the Postal Service offers.   However, private delivery offers the producers of the shoppers shorter lead times between the sale of advertisements and actual delivery than what delivery using the Postal Service would offer.   The decades long success of shoppers suggest that firms offering delivery in rural areas can earn sufficient profits to maintain and grow this business. 

Universal Service Could Not be Provided by the Private Sector

The experience of foreign postal operators suggests that rural service, including service to Lapland in Sweden and Finland, the rural plains of Saskatchewan and Manitoba, as well as the Arctic regions of Canada, and the Outback in Australia can be provided under private sector business objectives.   These firms, while all currently owned by the national government all have a charter that requires universal service for both citizen and business mailers.  In the case of Australia, the charter requires many more postal outlets per capita than the Postal Service has now.  All of these enterprises operate at a profit and operated at a profit through the recession.

Sweden Post, which in many ways has distribution patterns that are not much different that states in the Mountain West, with a couple of big cities and a vast rural areas that have tiny villages hundreds of miles from urban centers, has shown that it can offer universal service at a profit even if you face a competitor that only delivers mail sent by large volume business mailers in Sweden's urban areas.   Sweden Post will soon become a private sector corporation as the government of Sweden will be selling shares to the public soon.

The reasons why these posts can profitably offer universal service are the same reasons that FedEx and UPS deliver to every address in the United States.   First, their largest customers demand it.     Large customers want the entire mailing delivered and look at the total delivery cost of the mailing in making their assessment of the value of the delivery service.   As such, these customers are likely to accept any pricing scheme produces a reasonable total delivery cost for a mailing.   If simplicity requires a uniform price, as it often does with letter mail, then the price offered for each piece must earn a profit for the mailing.  Single piece mail is similar in that a uniform rate is set to ensure that the product is profitable including items delivered and tendered to the most urban and rural areas


For higher priced items, like the parcels that FedEx and UPS handle, surcharges to rural areas that reflect cost differences ensure that each parcel is handled profitably. pieces going to the bottom of the Grand Canyon, and each of these customers business can be priced to insure that the entire mailing is profitable.  If there is a need for a subsidy, as there is for parcels to the Canadian Arctic, then there are specific government subsidies paid to Canada Post. 

Finally, what makes universal service work for postal operators, that work under private sector business objectives is the flexibility to change every aspect of how the services are provided, from the characteristics of retail outlets, to pricing of single piece and volume products, to extensive freedom to offer new services that customers want even if other firms in the private sector now offer them.   This flexibility and commercial freedoms are not available to the the Postal Service.   The Postal Service is not likely to gain this flexibility and commercial freedom under governmental models.

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The Obama administration is supposed to come up with a solution for the retiree health liability shortly.   Postal stakeholders know that resolving retiree health payment scheudle is only a part of the solution that is needed in developing a new business model and regulatory framework.   Let's hope that they take the time to fully understand the mail market and the unique needs of the Postal Service's customers, the processes of producing mail, the characteristics of the Postal Service's workforce, and  how postal operators outside of the United States provide universal service at a profit with private sector business objectives before that complete their analysis of the Postal Service's problems and potential solutions. 

Could the Budget Kill Efforts to Save the Postal Service?

In the next few days, President Obama will deliver the State of the Union Address and reveal the 2011 budget.   White House spokesman have already announced that the budget will include a freeze in discretionary spending in fiscal years 2011 through 2014.    The spending freeze creates an additional barrier on top of the normal budget scoring process to efforts to find a solution to the Postal Service's financial problems.   

The budget scoring process put the retiree health care payment schedule in place in order for the Postal Accountability and Enhancement Act (PAEA) to pass.   The budget scoring process derailed the normal legislative process as a method to deal with the Postal Service's financial problems last year.   The relief that was granted was included in last-minute legislation that did not require budget scoring.

The relief that Congress granted last year did not solve the long term problems of the Postal Service.   Congress will soon see a report from the Government Accountability Office (GAO) on potential business models and regulatory frameworks that could offer long term solutions.   It is unclear whether the GAO's mandate will cover key financial questions regarding the Postal Service's true liabilities for CSRS pensions, retiree health care benefits, and workers compensation payments which affect the viability of all business modes that the GAO is likely to consider.


The Problem with the retiree health care liability was studied by both the USPS - Office of Inspector General (USPS-OIG), and the Postal Regulatory Commission (PRC) and both studies recommended lower payment schedules than the current schedule.   Choosing either the USPS-OIG or the PRC schedules would reduce the Postal Service's payment to Office of Personnel Management (OPM) and in the budget scoring process would require cost savings in non-postal programs or other payments from the Postal Service for the change to be budget neutral.

A new report from the USPS-OIG, The Postal Service's Share of CSRS Pension Responsibility, creates even more budgetary problems if the results are accepted.   This report indicates that the Postal Service has overpaid its liability by $58.7 billion more than previously estimated.   If this overpayment is transferred to cover the Postal Service's retiree health care liability, the Postal Service's obligation for retiree health care costs would be even smaller.   Again, the primary obstacle to accepting the USPS-OIG analysis is the Congressional budget scoring process.

Fixing retiree and other liabilities was critical in postal reform efforts outside the United States.   In these countries, legislatures realized that a viable national postal operator and universal service required that the postal operator not be burdened with retiree obligations at levels that would force layoffs or price increases. 

The Postal Service and nearly all stakeholders realize that the first step to solving the Postal Service's problems will involve recognizing that 1) retiree payments reflect actual obligations and 2) the payment schedule for this actual obligation should follow private sector standards for funding retiree obligations.  The National Association of Letter Carrier's Fact Sheet presents the arguments that stakeholders will make before Congress over the coming month. 

Given budget scoring, these arguments will fall on deaf ears unless stakeholders can find ways to replace the "funds" that fixing the pension and retiree health care obligations creates.   Failure in the effort to find a fix will force the Postal Service to raise rates substantially, make cuts in service beyond eliminating Saturday, and reduce the workforce faster than it has proposed to date.   

Is there a solution?  Is there a solution using a governmental business model?   My paper, Examination of Postal Business Models, tried to answer these questions in assessing potential business models and concluded that there is a solution and governmental business models did not offer one.   It is time for others looking at Postal business models, and in particular those stakeholders that want to retain a governmental model to explain how their model can solve the problem of Postal liabilities and get the changes that they envision passed by Congress.