President's Message

October 11, 2006
Charles Mapa, President

Greetings Fellow Postmasters and LEAGUE Members

Fellow Leaguers,

NPA/PFP

The Postal fiscal year has just ended; that means that it is time for us to start to work on our end of year evaluation for PFP. Hopefully, you’ve been documenting your operations so that you can make your best case. Recently, Postal Headquarters released its latest numbers for NPA/PFP. As expected, there were no great changes to the process, however there were a few minor adjustments made. These adjustments were made to push block 6 closer to the middle of the bell curve. You will see that PEG is not one of the considerations for PFP; part of its 5% was moved to Grievances Appealed to Arbitration. Perhaps the change that will affect us most is how the MPOO’s will earn their scores. Until 2007, MPOO’s were rated on the performance of their clusters. Now they will receive a unit score based on the performance of the post offices below them. As the purpose of NPA is to drive behaviors, it is the hope of the League that this will move MPOO’s to be more supportive to Postmasters.

Postal Reform

Postal Reform is currently at a standstill. Congress has recessed to allow congressmen to return home to work to be re-elected. There was some great hope that the Postal Reform bill might pass before recess as all the major stakeholders had agreed to the wording for a sticky part of the bill. Apparently, the White House had put out the message that it would not oppose relieving the Postal Service of the $27 billion burden placed on it by a previous bill, and that it was willing to have the bill allow the billions of dollars put into escrow to be used to prepay medical costs for retirees to begin in about 10 years. Everything was lined up for passage until the National Association of Letter Carriers backed out stating that the bill would not allows injured carriers to go out on continuation of pay until 3 days after being injured. This caused considerable consternation to the other stakeholders as this provision had been a part of the bill for a long time. The stakeholders questioned why the NALC waited until the 11th hour to bring up the matter. Congress will meet again after the elections; maybe we’ll see more movement on the bill.

Growth Award

Now, at the beginning of the fiscal year, is the time to get involved with the Chief Marketing Officer (CMO) Growth Award. Earning the award is a yearlong process. It involves earning points for participation in and the sponsoring of Revenue Generation Activities, Marketing Initiatives, and Marketing Outreach. For more information on how to begin earning your growth award, go to blue.usps.gov/marketing/growthaward.htm. The League has strongly promoted the Postal Service’s efforts to help Postmasters come up with ways to generate revenue. We’ve had many winners of the Growth award over the last few years; let’s continue to wholeheartedly support this endeavor.

Post Office Closings

Weekly, I continue to be contacted by Postmasters concerned about the closing or suspension of service of post offices. Postal regulations clearly outline the procedures that must be followed to close post offices, suspend the operations of post offices, and to downgrade the levels of post offices. Sometimes in their zeal to find places to save money, some districts are either completely ignoring the regulations and others are not in full compliance. The rules for closure have been put into place to protect Postmasters and communities from overzealous MPOO’s and District Managers. If you know of any offices being downgraded or closed, please contact me at League Headquarters. Often we are the sentinels that make sure that the rules are being followed.

Thank WWII Veterans

The next Federal Holiday coming up is, no, not Halloween, but Veterans’ Day. Our World War II veterans, the greatest generation, are reaching the ends of their lives in great numbers now, as age, not war, is taking them from us. This is a tremendous opportunity for Postmasters from all over our country to plan celebrations in their communities to honor the brave men and women who served us in WWII. The WWII veterans waited 60 years to be honored by a memorial in our nation’s capital. We have a wonderful opportunity to say thank you to the veterans in our communities. We League Postmasters have this chance to honor our heroes rather than celebrate Veterans’ Day as just another day off.

--Charles Mapa, LEAGUE President