Final: About 4,200 postmasters leave under early-out program
October 5th, 2012 | Postal Service | Posted by Sean Reilly
For anyone who’s keeping count, a grand total of 4,189 postmasters took advantage of a $20,000 buyout/early-out deal, according to a final tally from the U.S. Postal Service. The vast majority of those left in July; several hundred more departed in August and September.
USPS executives announced the package in May at the same time that they unveiled plans to reduce customer service hours at some 13,000 post offices. The final number is a bit more than the Postal Service had predicted back in August; it represents about one-fifth of all postmaster positions on the rolls earlier this year.
Tags: postmaster
Several thousand postmasters call it quits
August 6th, 2012 | Postal Service | Posted by Sean Reilly
Last Tuesday marked another bittersweet milestone in the U.S. Postal Service’s seemingly endless downsizing campaign as almost 3,800 postmasters walked out the door. A few hundred more could follow them by the end of next month, according to USPS figures released today at FedLine’s request.
The cause, of course, is the POStPlan, which calls for reducing customer service window hours at some 13,000 post offices nationwide to as little as two hours a day. As part of the same plan to save about a half-billion dollars annually, the Postal Service also intends to eliminate more than half of the 21,000 full-time postmaster positions that were on the rolls earlier this year.
To encourage postmasters to leave, the Postal Service has adopted a carrot-and-stick approach: On the one hand, offering $20,000 buyouts and an early retirement package; on the other, warning of possible reductions-in-force for postmasters still on the job after September 2014.
Here’s where things stand, according to a helpful chart provided by the Postal Service’s public relations office:
|
2012 Incentive Retirement Count as of August 01, 2012 |
Optional |
VER |
Resignation |
Total |
| Postmasters |
2,415 |
1,613 |
76 |
4,104 |
| Separations as of 7/31/2012 |
2,214 |
1,488 |
74 |
3,776 |
| Separations as of 8/31/2012 |
56 |
38 |
1 |
95 |
| Separations as of 9/30/2012 |
145 |
87 |
1 |
233 |
In an email, USPS spokesman Mark Saunders noted that optionally eligible postmasters could still pull out before their scheduled departure dates. Asked what the Postal Service is doing to fill the vacancies left behind, Saunders said that other employees may temporarily step in to ensure uninterrupted service while some openings will be filled internally.
Tags: postmaster, POStplan