The USPS OIG has released their Top Ten Postal Stories of 2022, found below. The
release has prompted PostalMag to give our own abbreviated Top Postal Stories
List based on news stories the website linked to in 2022.
PostalMag Top Postal Stories List
1. The Postal Reform Act that maintains the status quo. It
was called the Postal Reform Act, but for better or worse, the act enabled the
Postal Service to continue operating as usual, minus the accounting notation
that saw multi-billion losses on paper due to the retirement pre-funding
mandate. Big mailers and postal labor unions were the big winners of this act. 2. Short-staffing: PostalMag news feeds were filled with news
stories of communities not receiving regular mail delivery, with some
communities going a week or more without deliveries. Short-staffing is not
unique to the Postal Service, with seemingly the entire American economy being
affected by a shortage of workers. But the USPS will have to figure out ways to
better recruit and retain employees in 2023, as elected officials are upping the
pressure on the USPS about the delays. 3. Violence against postal
workers: Criminals have figured out that arrow keys carried by most
postal carriers open up every apartment and centralized mailbox in the area. As
a result, postal workers have been targeted for their keys with violence and
robberies on the street like never before. In addition to the many news stories
PostalMag linked to about the robberies, many more go unreported, like the three
robberies of letter carriers in the Lakewood area of Dallas.
USPS OIG TOP TEN POSTAL STORIES 2022 "Another January, another list of important postal
stories. This past year brought many changes for the U.S. Postal Service and the
postal world. We had a hard time keeping our list to just 10, but we've managed
to rank our top stories, counting down to number one. Now, we want to know your
thoughts. Did we get the order wrong or miss an important story? Tell us in the
comments.
10. Ukraine's Postal Operator Becomes an
Infrastructure Hero: Ukrposhta has made stupendous efforts to keep mail, parcels, and
humanitarian aid flowing during the war with Russia. The post organized
alternative transportation routes to handle the closure of Ukraine's air space,
deployed 1,800 mobile post offices, and ensured pension payments continued to
arrive.
9. Price Increases Continue to Get Pushback: Since 2021, many in
the mailing industry have complained about planned twice-a-year, large price
increases on letter and flat mail. In 2022, Congress got involved, requiring the
Postal Regulatory Commission (PRC) to issue a report on the August 2021
increases. The PRC continues to support its pricing rules but did agree to
reconsider how USPS treats certain retiree health liability changes, which may
allow a small amount of relief.
8. Package Volumes Experience
Post-Pandemic Reset: For the first time in more than a decade, the Postal
Service saw declines in Shipping and Package volume and revenue in fiscal year
(FY) 2022. In contrast, Marketing Mail volume and revenue grew. The results,
which include the 2021 holiday season, reflect a drop in package volumes from
their height in the first year of the pandemic as retailing has normalized. They
still remain higher than before the pandemic.
7. Increased Mail Thefts
Point to Need for Arrow Key Security: A spike in mail theft and related
financial crime around the country drew considerable attention from not only the
media but also Congress. We found one reason is the Postal Service's lack of
effective controls over arrow keys, which open blue collection boxes and cluster
unit delivery boxes. As Inspector General Tammy Whitcomb Hull noted in testimony
to Congress last November, mail theft is getting more sophisticated, and even
organized crime has become involved.
6. USPS Delivers for Covid Testing:
In January 2022, the U.S. government launched a program for Americans to order
free Covid tests online. The Postal Service provided the ordering website,
packed the tests, addressed the parcels, and delivered them. By July 31, 2022,
more than 145 million test kits had been ordered and delivered as we described
in September. Last month, the White House restarted the program for winter.
5. USPS Also Delivers for the 2022 Midterm Elections: Concerns about the
Postal Service's ability to deliver ballots were again high for the 2022 midterm
elections, but so far, the news is good. Our readiness audit found the Postal
Service took several steps to smooth the way before the primaries including
establishing the Election and Government Mail Services Organization and
instituting prior audit recommendations and was generally ready. The postal
network handled nearly 10 million more primary Election Mail pieces than in 2020
with more delivered on time. During the 2022 midterm elections, we conducted
more than 800 observations at postal facilities across the country to ensure the
Postal Service was following its rules and will release the results of that work
soon.
4. Service Scores Improve, But Reports of Delivery Problems Persist: The Postal Service announced large increases in FY 2022 on-time service scores
compared to FY 2021 for First-Class Mail, Marketing Mail, and Periodicals.
Anecdotal reports of failed and inconsistent mail delivery, however, continue to
appear in the news, often attributed to staffing shortages. The OIG also
participated in Congressional field hearings in Philadelphia and Baltimore to
share our work addressing service concerns in each location.
3.
Postal Service Undertakes Major Processing and Delivery Network Reorganization:
Postmaster General DeJoy first laid out the dramatic changes at the National
Postal Forum in May. They include plans to put 60 to 64 Regional Processing and
Distribution Centers around the country serving as hubs for transportation
across the network and to consolidate several thousand delivery units into
several hundred larger Sorting and Delivery Centers.
2. USPS Gets More
Electric: The Postal Service keeps upping the electric-vehicle portion of its
Next Generation Delivery Vehicles - from 10, to 20, to 50, to now 75 percent
with vehicles arriving in 2026 and beyond expected to be fully electric. The
Biden administration, environmental groups, members of Congress, and the
Government Accountability Office had criticized the previous plan, saying it was
inadequate, based on faulty assumptions, or had violated the National
Environmental Policy Act. In August, Congress provided $3 billion in funding for
both electric vehicles and infrastructure. The first vehicles under the new plan
are expected to enter service sometime this year.
1. Postal Reform
Becomes Law: On April 6, after many attempts, the first major postal reform
legislation became law since 2006. The Postal Service Reform Act of 2022 removes
the requirement that the Postal Service make retiree health prefunding payments.
(The Postal Service remains ultimately responsible for paying retirees'
benefits.) It also enacts Medicare integration, requires more transparency on
service performance, allows the Postal Service to provide non-postal products to
state, local, and tribal governments, and gives the IG of the Postal Service
responsibility for oversight of the Postal Regulatory Commission."
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