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Hot Topics in the USPS for August

Rich Cicha, Aug 10, 2012

  • Postal Service to default on retiree health benefit payment.

    The U.S. Postal Service will not make mandated prefunding retiree health benefit payments to the Treasury of $5.5 billion due Aug. 1, 2012 or the $5.6 billion payment due Sept. 30, absent legislation enacted by Congress.

  • Approps bills restrict USPS cost cutting.

    The Senate committee released details and an analysis of its bill, joining the House, which earlier had released its own bill language. Both bills would continue two long-running requirements affecting the U.S. Postal Service: that it must deliver mail six days a week; and that it cannot use funds in the bill to close small post offices.

  • Senate Committee holds confirmation hearing for USPS BOG.

    The Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee held a confirmation hearing on the nomination of Stephen Crawford to the U.S. Postal Service Board of Governors. Crawford was part of President Obama's 2008 transition team for the U.S. Postal Service where he made recommendations on policy. Among them he suggested that the Post Office offer free PO boxes to citizens as a substitute for delivery to their homes and reduce frequency of mail delivery to 3 to 5 times a week.

  • PRC approves USPS holiday mobile barcode promotion.

    The PRC has approved the USPS' QR promo for this fall mailing season. The Mobile Shopping Promotion includes an upfront 2-percent discount on qualifying mailpieces. It is scheduled to take effect at 12:01 a.m. on November 7, 2012 and expires at 11:59 p.m. on November 21, 2012.

  • Modern Service Standards Maps.

    Service Standards maps and data files containing originating, destinating, and destination entry data files have been added to the Modern Service Standards page on RIBBS. The maps reflect service standards for market dominant (Mailing Services) products that are effective as of July 1, 2012. A Service Standard represents the level of service that the USPS strives to provide to customers. These standards are one of the primary operational goals and provide benchmarks against which we measure service performance success.

  • OIG says IMb date reliable for service measurement; identifies issues.

    The USPS Office of Inspector General (OIG) this week released an audit report concluding that the IMb data used for SPM of commercial mail is generally reliable, but said that coverage levels remain low for 4 of the 13 categories used to assess whether the data is representative of the overall population of IMb Full- Service commercial mail. It also said the SPM system is complex and includes duplicative internal and external calculation processes, and that the proxy data used by USPS for last mile calculation may distort actual results. The OIG said, however, that it considers these issues “ to be minor as they relate to the overall reliability of SPM data.”

  
Categories:
  • Data Modeling and Analytics
  • Printing Technology
  • Government
  • Multichannel Technology
  • Direct Mail
  • Statement and Transactional
  • US Postal Service News
 |  Tags:
  • postal reform
  • post office closure
  • data-driven
  • postage
  • mail delivery

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