(Washington, D.C.) – Today, Citizens Against Government Waste (CAGW) expressed outrage over the August 26, 2011 United States Postal Service (USPS) Inspector General (IG) report which revealed that, of the “284 million square feet of interior space it owns or leases nationwide, [USPS] … maintains 67 million square feet (or 24 percent) of excess square feet of interior space.”  According to the report, USPS has plans in place to cut just 1 percent of its existing real estate, despite the fact that USPS’s vacancy rate is more than 80 percent higher than the national commercial average of 13.4 percent.  The report is another example of endemic waste at USPS.

In January 2011, the Postal Regulatory Commission allowed just 83 loss-incurring post offices to be shuttered, citing laws that prevent individual offices from being closed solely for economic reasons.  USPS had presented a list of 400 offices that were in the red.  On July 26, 2011, USPS announced that it had identified 3,700 post offices to begin closing in 2012.  Those plans have yet to be approved by Congress, where attempts to run the USPS more like a private business have met with resistance in the past. 

To make matters worse, as first-class mail volume has dwindled, USPS has been paying millions of dollars in salaries and benefits to workers who do not deliver mail.  According to an August 12, 2011 USPS IG report, the Postal Service paid $31 million for 1.25 million hours of stand-by time in fiscal year (FY) 2009, $21.9 million for 875,540 hours in FY 2010, and $4.3 million for 170,666 hours in the first half of FY 2011.  

In March 2010, Postmaster General John Potter proposed eliminating Saturday delivery in an effort to reduce his prediction of $238 billion in losses over the coming decade.  He also proposed altering USPS’s current prepayment system of medical benefits for retirees – an annual cost of $5.5 billion – to one that operates on a pay-as-you-go basis.  Neither proposal has been approved by Congress.  However, the second session of the 111^th Congress has found the time to introduce almost 50 bills renaming various post offices, in addition to 427 similar bills in the first session.

“The USPS is fond of pointing out that it is an independent corporation that does not run on taxpayer dollars,” said CAGW President Tom Schatz.  “But demand for first-class mail peaked in 2006 and has been declining rapidly ever since, resulting in losses at USPS of $8.5 billion in FY 2010, an alarming amount that is likely to be exceeded this year.  If members of Congress wish to avoid approving what will surely be an unpopular bailout package in the near future, the USPS should be allowed to pare back whatever services it deems wasteful.  Instead of wasting time naming post offices, members should support the efforts of House Oversight and Government Reform Committee Chairman Darrell Issa (R-Calif.), who is working to pass legislation that will protect taxpayers and steer the USPS toward solvency.” 

Citizens Against Government Waste is a nonpartisan, nonprofit organization dedicated to eliminating waste, fraud, mismanagement and abuse in government.