Postal Retirees — FERS & CSRS To Get 1.5 per cent COLA in January 2014 » Senate Committee to Vote on Postal Bill Next Week Yesterday, Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Chairman Tom Carper (D-DE) announced that the committee will markup S. 1486 on Wednesday, November 6. The meeting will begin at 10:00 AM EST. It is likely that the authors, Senators Carper and ranking Republican Tom Coburn (R-OK), will offer an amendment to the legislation that will include mutually acceptable changes to the bill. Other Senators intend to offer amendments. All amendments must be filed with committee by Monday afternoon. You may read more about the committee meeting and the House-Senate Budget Conference Committee that may consider hits to federal and postal benefits in the latest edition of the eNAPUS Legislative and Political Bulletin. While S. 1486, as drafted, provides a measure of financial relief and enables the USPS to be more innovative, contention remains in three major areas. First, deep anxiety exists over provisions that adversely impact employee health and retirement benefits. Amendments will likely be offered to address these concerns, but they have yet to be shared. With regard to FEHBP coverage, there is overwhelming consensus that the USPS is incapable of administering its own health benefits plan and, therefore, the final bill should offer coverage through the FEHBP. Another issue commanding attention is improving integration between FEHBP and Medicare Second, mailers object to giving the USPS more latitude to adjust rates for market-dominant products. NAPUS believes that the current pricing regime is too restrictive, and has impaired the quality and accessibility of services. Under current law, postage cannot exceed a particularly low consumer price index (CPI), as measured by the Bureau of Labor Statistics. There exist other indices more reflective of postal expenses, such as the CPI for Delivery Services and the Producer Price Index for Delivery and Warehouse Services. Third, there is concern S. 1486 does not adequately address postal service standards. For example, NAPUS believes that S. 1486 should include the retail service standards and PRC post office closing provisions that were included in last year’s bipartisan Senate-passed measure. - See more at: postal-reporter/blog/senate-committee-to-vote-on-postal-bill-next-week/#sthash.OL2uP5eN.dpu
Posted on: Fri, 01 Nov 2013 16:46:47 +0000
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