In addition to carrying the mail and delivering Christmas packages, U.S. Postal Service carriers may soon be doubling as pothole reporters, air-quality testers or bank tellers.
The USPS inspector general outlined in a report made public Monday a host of ideas to rescue the financially-troubled agency by taking advantage of its existing infrastructure to create new revenue streams that don’t depend on customers buying postage stamps.
Most of the ideas would require Congress to scrap existing legislation that limits the ability of the postal service to diversify. Laws currently prohibit the agency from offering “new products that do not meet the definition of a postal service,” the report said.
In the last three years alone, the postal service has lost $26 billion.
Post offices — which presently offer money orders, the IG noted — could begin cashing checks or selling reloadable payment cards to make money. The idea would take advantage of the 59 percent of post offices that operate in zip codes with one or no bank branches, the report said.
The IG also suggested turning post offices into “community hubs” to raise new revenues.
The process would involve dedicating post office space to community gatherings and posting bulletin boards for the “exchange of information,” the report said. Such hubs could offer Wi-Fi and computing services, and could even perform 3-D printing in the future, the IG proposed.
For local businesses, post offices with extra space could provide “micro-warehouses” that companies could use to store goods in anticipation of local deliveries, the report said.
The agency’s watchdog suggested using the extensive routes USPS carriers already travel to sell services to businesses or local municipalities.
“For example, carriers could carry sensors to monitor air quality or vehicles could be fitted with devices to report back on potholes,” the report said.
Mail carriers could even begin toting hand-held gadgets that would allow them to offer in-person services on their routes. The IG suggested mobile devices equipped to sell stamps, recharge debit cards and even process passport applications at the door could be an option for the agency.
The report cited several other fixes that could stem the agency’s substantial losses. In 2011, the USPS watchdog concluded allowing carriers to deliver mail to the curb instead of requiring them to bring it all the way to the door would save $4.5 billion each year.
A plan to consolidate 82 mail plants would save $750 million annually, the report said.
But even simple solutions have met resistance in Congress, the report noted. For example, a USPS proposal to end Saturday delivery has struggled to lift the “legislative obstacle” needed to forge ahead.
Senators banded together to call for a one-year freeze on the consolidations in August, citing the 15,000 jobs such a move would cost.
“The Postal Service is making some attempts at adjustment, but the controversy provoked by service changes and consolidations impedes the agility and rapid adaptation that could mark the difference between institutional life and death,” the IG said.
According to the Postal Regulatory Commission’s 2013 operating statistics, the postal service employed more than 617,000 people in 2013. The agency paid $952 million in rent that year, the Postal Regulatory Commission said.
What’s more, the very shape of the mail is shifting, the report said. The rise of online shopping has sparked a parallel rise in package volume, but the USPS network is structured around letters and flats, the report said.
Such changes could require the postal service to “retool” its approach to processing mail, the report said.
Go here to read the full USPS IG report.
