I was too quick yesterday to praise the U.S. Postal Service’s new eRetire system, which seems to be just a faster and more convenient way for potential retirees to get inaccurate information.
“eRetire isn’t better. The only improvement I see is you can download some documents as PDFs rather than waiting for hard copies in the mail,” responded Don Cheney, an APWU leader from Auburn, WA and an expert on USPS retirement issues, in reaction to my article Postal Service Steps Up Communications With Potential Retirees.
The new website “provides only two annuity estimates: optional and disability retirement,” he said. “There are no annuity estimates available online for Voluntary Early Retirements. They still don’t include the FERS annuity supplement in annuity estimates for eligible employees in FERS.”
Software bug
He has also learned of at least one bug in eRetire: “When a city carrier downloaded his disability retirement packet yesterday, it had the job description for an Information Systems Specialist, EAS-21, rather than a city carrier.”
Cheney has been trying for seven years to educate postal employees about all of their retirement benefits and to get USPS to issue accurate and complete retirement estimates to employees. He recently wrote an article that asked, “Does the Postal Service Really Want Early Retirements?" And he has two grievances pending on the Postal Service’s failure to obey the Office of Personnel Management’s rules regarding annuity estimates.
Sign a blank check?
“USPS refuses to provide retirement counseling in a VER until AFTER the employee has signed an ‘Acknowledgement of Irrevocability.’ This form is not required for other types of retirements. Would you sign a blank check that is irrevocable?”
“The demise of Personnel Services in the districts has meant union reps like me have had to step in to assist employees with their retirement applications,” Cheney said
“Lack of retirement counseling is especially bad for veterans, who make up about half of the workforce. Their paperwork takes about four to six months to process. Veterans are forced to sign an 'Acknowledgement of Irrevocability' without knowing how much money they will owe for their military service or how much annuity they will get. I’ve seen the USPS demand as much as $10,000 from a veteran at the last minute. This is a major reason for complaints and long delays in a non-pay status.”
Think about any of the recent scandals involving the Postal Service: Bernstock. Payment of health premiums for top executives. Using retired executives as consultants.
I contend that the amount of money wasted in those incidents is a drop in the bucket compared with what the Postal Service is paying excess employees who would retire if they only knew what their retirement benefits would be.
Not at all business-like
I keep hearing USPS executives talk about how they’re running the Postal Service in a more business-like manner. But I know of no business – even ones that aren’t trying to downsize -- that puts its employees through such a runaround to get retirement projections.
Postal officials keep pointing out how much cost they have taken out of the system the past few years. But it’s hard for me (or, more importantly, Congress) to get excited about those efforts when I see how much money could be saved simply by providing employees accurate information.
I still haven’t heard an answer to the question I asked two months ago as the Postal Service was trying unsuccessfully to impose emergency price increases: “Why Does USPS Make Retiring Difficult When It Has So Many Excess Employees?
Friday, October 8, 2010
Thursday, October 7, 2010
Postal Service Steps Up Communications With Potential Retirees
I have repeatedly criticized the U.S. Postal Service for providing slow and inaccurate estimates of retiree benefits (see below), so it’s only fair that I point out the “eRetire” program it announced today.
“eRetire is the new employee self-service application that allows employees to plan for and initiate retirement activities online via LiteBlue [the Postal Service intranet],” says the announcement in today’s edition of the USPS Postal Bulletin. Employees can access the service by logging into LiteBlue, going to Employee Apps, and choosing “eRetire”.
See the follow-up article, USPS Getting Its Retirement Act Together? Nope, which shows that eRetire is not all it's cracked up to be.
Employees (except part-timers and postal inspectors) who are eligible to retire or within six months of eligibility can use the new online service to get an annuity estimate, order a Retirement Application Package, or schedule a Retirement Counseling Session. Those within five years of retirement eligibility can get estimates of what their retirement annuity will be.
This certainly sounds like a step in the right direction for an organization that needs to downsize (and that seems to have so many employees ready to retire if given relatively minimal incentives).
Now we’ll have to see how accurate the estimates are and how quickly the annuities are paid out once employees retire.
Some Dead Tree Edition critiques of the Postal Service's communications to potential retirees include:
“eRetire is the new employee self-service application that allows employees to plan for and initiate retirement activities online via LiteBlue [the Postal Service intranet],” says the announcement in today’s edition of the USPS Postal Bulletin. Employees can access the service by logging into LiteBlue, going to Employee Apps, and choosing “eRetire”.
See the follow-up article, USPS Getting Its Retirement Act Together? Nope, which shows that eRetire is not all it's cracked up to be.
Employees (except part-timers and postal inspectors) who are eligible to retire or within six months of eligibility can use the new online service to get an annuity estimate, order a Retirement Application Package, or schedule a Retirement Counseling Session. Those within five years of retirement eligibility can get estimates of what their retirement annuity will be.
This certainly sounds like a step in the right direction for an organization that needs to downsize (and that seems to have so many employees ready to retire if given relatively minimal incentives).
Now we’ll have to see how accurate the estimates are and how quickly the annuities are paid out once employees retire.
Some Dead Tree Edition critiques of the Postal Service's communications to potential retirees include:
Wednesday, October 6, 2010
USPS Seeks Guidance On Its Rate Cap
The U.S. Postal Service is asking for a ruling on something that was supposed to be clear -- how much it can increase rates without getting special permission.
A Postal Service lawyer asked the Postal Regulatory Commission today for guidance regarding how to interpret the price cap on most mail products (including First-Class, Standard, and Periodicals), which is based on changes in the Consumer Price Index (CPI-U).
When the PRC announced its decision last week in the exigent rate case, "some uncertainty was expressed regarding the exact amount of authority that is currently available to the Postal Service to adjust rates under the CPI-U price cap," wrote R. Andrew German, managing counsel for USPS Pricing & Product Development in a letter to the PRC.
The PRC's Web site has a chart suggesting that the current price cap is 1.477%, which is based on the average CPI for the most recent 12 months versus the previous 12 months (that is, September 2009 to August 2010 versus September 2008 to August 2009).
But German noted that "it has been more than 12 months since the Postal Service adjusted rates pursuant to the price cap," which seems to mean that a different calculation method should be used.
German referred to a section of the PRC's regulations regarding rate increases that are more than 12 months apart. My interpretation of that section is that the current rate cap would be based on comparing the average CPI for the most recent 12 months to the average CPI for calendar year 2008, yielding a cap of only 0.864%. But I'm no lawyer, and the wording is far from clear in this case.
"For purposes of developing its own financial plans, the Postal Service needs an interpretation of that rule (or any other applicable rules) upon which the Postal Service can rely if it were to begin preparation of the requisite documentation for CPI-U rate adjustment," German wrote.
The postal-reform law and the PRCs regulations interpreting that law are clear when things go as envisioned, with the USPS seeking rate increases once a year based on increases in the CPI-U. But no one seemed to anticipate the Consumer Price Index decreasing, which is what it did in 2009 primarily as a result of rapidly declining fuel prices. There was no provision in the law requiring the Postal Service to decrease rates as a result of that deflation and no guidance regarding the baseline period for future rate-cap calculations.
A Postal Service lawyer asked the Postal Regulatory Commission today for guidance regarding how to interpret the price cap on most mail products (including First-Class, Standard, and Periodicals), which is based on changes in the Consumer Price Index (CPI-U).
When the PRC announced its decision last week in the exigent rate case, "some uncertainty was expressed regarding the exact amount of authority that is currently available to the Postal Service to adjust rates under the CPI-U price cap," wrote R. Andrew German, managing counsel for USPS Pricing & Product Development in a letter to the PRC.
The PRC's Web site has a chart suggesting that the current price cap is 1.477%, which is based on the average CPI for the most recent 12 months versus the previous 12 months (that is, September 2009 to August 2010 versus September 2008 to August 2009).
But German noted that "it has been more than 12 months since the Postal Service adjusted rates pursuant to the price cap," which seems to mean that a different calculation method should be used.
German referred to a section of the PRC's regulations regarding rate increases that are more than 12 months apart. My interpretation of that section is that the current rate cap would be based on comparing the average CPI for the most recent 12 months to the average CPI for calendar year 2008, yielding a cap of only 0.864%. But I'm no lawyer, and the wording is far from clear in this case.
"For purposes of developing its own financial plans, the Postal Service needs an interpretation of that rule (or any other applicable rules) upon which the Postal Service can rely if it were to begin preparation of the requisite documentation for CPI-U rate adjustment," German wrote.
The postal-reform law and the PRCs regulations interpreting that law are clear when things go as envisioned, with the USPS seeking rate increases once a year based on increases in the CPI-U. But no one seemed to anticipate the Consumer Price Index decreasing, which is what it did in 2009 primarily as a result of rapidly declining fuel prices. There was no provision in the law requiring the Postal Service to decrease rates as a result of that deflation and no guidance regarding the baseline period for future rate-cap calculations.
An Environmentalist's Defense of Clearcut Logging
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| Steven E. Kallick |
“Frankly, in the boreal forest, selective harvest is impractical because of the nature of the trees. You don’t have the big kind of coastal old growth forest,” Steven E. Kallick, director of the International Boreal Conservation Campaign for the Pew Charitable Trusts, told Yale Environment 360.
“What you have is extensive forest of smaller trees. And in order to be profitable, you need to be able to go in there and take out a significant part of the volume. And ecologically it’s not like clearcutting in a coastal forest. It doesn’t have the same impact because the boreal forest is a vast, fire-dominated ecosystem where large-scale disturbance is not uncommon.”
The logging companies that signed the agreement have agreed to “meet or beat the Forest Stewardship Council standards,” which Kallick calls “the green seal of approval for logging.”
“The reason the Forest Stewardship Council does not prohibit clearcutting in the boreal forest is because it’s not ecologically required.”
Canada’s boreal (subarctic) forest – along with undisturbed portions of the Amazon and Russia’s Taiga – is “one of the three great tracts of forest on the globe,” Kallick says. Pew decided to focus on the Canadian boreal, he told The Seattle Times, because, of the three, “it's the only one in a country with a tradition of conservation, so the most likely to be protected on a scale to preserve the ecosystem and yet allow people to benefit from the natural resources.”
Kallick told The Times he got interested in environmental work when a newspaper for which he wrote refused to publish his story about a hazardous waste dump.
“I thought, ‘I'm in the wrong business. I'm going to law school and figure out how to bust people like this.’”
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