Iowa delegation keeps close eye on postal problems

WASHINGTON - Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, and Rep. Bruce Braley, D-Iowa, each grew up in small Iowa towns - Grassley in New Hartford, Braley in Brooklyn - where the post office was central to the community.

Today Grassley and Braley don't agree on much at the Capitol. But they and other members of Iowa's congressional delegation are allied in an ongoing struggle to keep the state's rural post offices alive.

This fall and winter, the U.S. Postal Service will begin implementing reduced hours at scores of post offices across the country as an alternative to the onetime idea of closing the offices altogether. (Click here to view a list of post offices with reduced hours.)

“I know from growing up in a small town that post offices are the lifeline to many rural communities,” said Braley, who has helped lead the push to prevent office closings in Iowa. ”I went out and visited a lot of these places and listened to people whose lives would have been affected by the original decision to close these offices, and one of the messages they gave me loud and clear is that they would much prefer reduced hours to no service at all.”

Grassley, whose hometown was on the list of proposed post office closures, praised the Postal Service's “very reasonable” decision.

“New Hartford is still going to have its post office. It's still going to have an employee. And we're still going to be able to do business locally,” he said. “It's an either/or situation - close post offices and not have any service, or have service for part of a day instead of all day.”

Reprieve from closings

Postal officials were considering closing more than 3,600 rural post offices across the country, including about 180 in Iowa and about 30 in the eastern portion of the state alone. In May, the Postal Service announced the reduction in hours instead, a step which is expected to save the agency about $500 million a year.

A total of 572 offices across Iowa will see reduced hours, according to an official list on the Postal Service website. Most offices will go from eight hours to four, with some going as low as just two hours a day.

Postal Service officials are putting the best possible spin on the situation.

“We were talking about removing a place where people meet and get together, and now that's no longer the case,” said spokeswoman Laura Dvorak. “Now these places will stay open. So we see it as good news for these communities.”

Dvorak said any reductions in hours will first be discussed with the community before implementation. The current plan is for such discussions to begin in September, she said.

Pension requirement

Although the Postal Service handles 554 million pieces of mail per day - half of the world's total - that volume has dropped by 21 percent over the past five years due to an explosion in email usage and online bill payments. The lower volume means lower revenues at a time when the agency is already stressed by rising operating costs such as gas prices.

But the bigger problem is a law signed by President George W. Bush that requires the Postal Service to pay $5.4 billion a year to pre-fund employee pension plans. The payment is due by Sept. 30, the end of the fiscal year, and without a long-term bill Congress may allow the Postal Service to postpone the payment, as it did last year.

Those trends have combined to create massive deficits. Postal officials predict the agency will lose $14 billion this year, and could lose $18 billion a year by 2015 without congressional action.

Sen. Tom Harkin, D-Iowa, said while the pension requirement is the agency's biggest problem, the Postal Service should also develop more creative ways of raising revenue. The agency could lift its restriction on shipping alcohol, install ATMs at offices, or move some offices into neighborhood grocery stores, for example.

“There's this attitude at the Postal Service that the only way they can get out of the hole they're in is by cutting things,” Harkin said. “But a number of us think the Postal Service ought to start thinking about how they raise revenue and change the way they're doing things.”

Action in Congress

In April the Senate passed a bill to restructure the Postal Service's pension system and trim its workforce, potentially saving as much as $19 billion a year according to some projections. It would also protect Saturday mail delivery and place geographic and economic restrictions on any post office closings.

But the Republican-led House has never taken up the Senate bill, developing instead its own bill that would end Saturday mail delivery, reform the agency's finances and establish a commission to manage post office closings. For now, the lack of any House action means the Postal Service's pension prepayment requirement is still in effect.

Along with Braley, Rep. Dave Loebsack, D-Iowa, has also taken a leading role on the issue, having written the postmaster general to urge against any closings. He said he supports reduced hours, but emphasized that the facilities are a source of economic development in rural communities.

Loebsack has also co-sponsored a bill to restructure the Postal Service pension system and remove the pension prepayment requirement.

“The pension system is the main problem,” he told The Gazette. “That's the best way to attack this. We can do it in one fell swoop and I think we can do it in a bipartisan way.”

Braley said Republican House leaders have blocked his own similar bill to address the pension problem.

“The bottom line is that most of us who represent rural America know how critical these post offices are, and there is a constitutional responsibility to provide postal service to the American people,” he said. “It's not a matter of just wishing this problem would go away.”