The Mailers Council sent a letter this week to the House and Senate postal oversight and appropriations committees urging a reversal of the policy on military pension payments for postal retirees created in the Postal Civil Service Retirement System Funding Reform Act of 2003.
In the letter, Bob McLean, executive director of the council, said that “we write to express our concern over the potential for substantial increase in the cost of postage because of legislation Congress passed earlier this year, and to ask for your help in addressing this situation.”
Specifically, the legislation requires the postal service to place its CSRS savings in an escrow account starting in 2006 and to take over funding CSRS benefits earned by its employees during military service, a $27 billion obligation. The USPS has argued that it should not be responsible for the military benefits, and it also wants to abolish the escrow account.
Postmaster general John E. Potter has said that though the CSRS reform bill has produced short-term savings for the USPS, by 2006 inflationary pressures will eat up those savings, prompting the postal service to raise rates more than otherwise would be necessary.
