The USPS: Finally, Running Like A Real Private-Sector Business!
February 26, 2009
by: Leslie K. Paige

Wastewatcher, 9-Feb

Unfortunately, U.S. Postmaster General John Potter has apparently decided that the business model he wants to emulate is that of beleaguered General Motors, whose Chief Executive Rick Wagoner took a 64 percent increase in his salary in 2007 while his company was taking a nosedive, losing $39 billion. 

According to a February 17, 2009 story by Washington Times reporter Jim McElhatton, the postmaster general’s salary has risen 40 percent since 2006 and he received a $135,000 bonus last year.  According to McElhatton, this brings the value of Potter’s total compensation and retirement package to a whopping $800,000 in 2008.  Mr. Potter wasn’t the only postal official to benefit from the handsome compensation arrangement.  The deputy postmaster got $600,026 in total compensation and the chief of human resources received $482,820. 

The PMG’s compensation package was approved by the U.S. Postal Service’s (USPS) Board of Governors and shared with a few key congressional offices, even though the USPS lost $384 million in the first quarter of FY 2009 and revenue dropped $1.3 billion (6.3 percent) from the same quarter in 2008, when it lost $2.8 billion for the whole year.  Mail volume is dropping, particularly advertising mail, and that trend has been going on the eight quarters in a row.

The postmaster general’s should be moving in the same direction.