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Mailbox Economics

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By MICHAEL J. FIGLIA

Special to The Tampa Tribune

Published: March 16, 2009

The best place to gauge the impact of the current recession on the United States Postal Service is in your mailbox. An economic decline generally leads to a drop in mail volume, and we are seeing the biggest mail volume decline in history.

When big mailers like the banking, insurance and housing industries struggle, mail volume suffers too.

Volume fell nationally by 9.5 billion pieces (4.5 percent) in the last year, resulting in a $2.8 billion net operating loss after paying $5.6 billion to prefund retiree health benefits, as required under the Postal Accountability and Enhancement Act of 2006.

The Postal Service is self-supporting, funded by postal products and services, not through tax dollars. Like other businesses, we make changes to match the decline in sales. It's the only fiscally responsible course available as we strive to maintain affordable service and remain viable to best serve our customers.

The Postal Service has offered early retirement to tens of thousands of eligible employees. We're reorganizing delivery routes, adjusting post office hours, and relocating blue collection boxes to reflect customer demand. We are also postponing construction on new post offices.

Tampa is not immune to these changes. Mail volume thus far this year at the processing center in Tampa is down 6.2 percent or 91,378,099 pieces of mail.

We continue to change our operating plan to adjust for lower mail volumes, including reorganized carrier routes, adjusting hours in our mail processing plant and consolidated originating mail processing operations from St Petersburg.

These logical business measures will have an impact on employees, many of whom are your friends and neighbors. Some of the changes will be difficult as people find themselves doing a different job, working different hours or in a different facility. But they are necessary steps we have to take in order to prepare for the future.

Even with all of the changes, Tampa continues to rank near the top in the country for mail delivery service. Tampa is part of the Suncoast District, and in quarter one the district ranked second in the country for overnight committed first-class mail with a 97.25 percent delivery score. Mail service is independently measured by IBM.

We're continuing to adapt products and services to contemporary lifestyles and to improve customers' experiences in post offices, on usps.com and by phone. We're launching competitive shipping prices and continue to use our service to every home and business to create value for customers.

We will not change our unwavering commitment to service excellence and earning our customers' trust. Our goal is to continue providing quality service at reasonable prices to over 149 million American homes and businesses, including 18,300 business and 229,300 residential deliveries in Tampa.

When the economy rebounds, we'll be ready with more efficient practices and new processes and systems that continue to revolutionize the value of mail and how it is delivered to benefit customers.

Michael J. Figlia is acting postmaster of Tampa.

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