The USPS: Finally, Running Like A Real Private-Sector Business!

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.