Mr. DANIELS. Are you sure this estimate of cost was not changed in 3 months or 6 months? Mr. TAYLOR. We won't have anything available to us to change it. In our opinion, this was based on the cost estimates, and the figures currently available to us. Mr. DANIELS. I do not know if you were present when Mr. Jaspan testified. I believe Mr. Jaspan testified that the Department's gain in size and weight revision would not require a single additional super visor. In view of this testimony, would you not also agree that the same observation would apply to postmasters in general overhead costs in operating second- and third-class post offices? If these costs are not increased, what does this do to your estimate of the 90-percent variable formula? Mr. TAYLOR. The matters to which you refer, Mr. Jaspan's testimony, I believe I did hear him. I have no basis of information on whether more supervision will be necessary or not within the postal system, since I don't know what their precise supervisory situation is at the moment, but the expansion of this business, to carry the kind of freight that you see in this room, will require an increase in the plant, and that increase in the plant will require an increase in the custodial and some other things. I do not believe that they are going to remain fixed as a result of this infusion. Mr. DANIELS. The Post Office Department in 1951, according to the testimony, did a gross volume of business of about 7,200,000 pounds, which has dropped, I understand, to 4,300,000 pounds in 1965. Would this not indicate to you, as a representative of REA, that they have a great deal of underutilized space? Mr. TAYLOR. It does not indicate that to me. Everything I have read, as I said in my testimony recently, including an article in United States News & World Report, which, if the committee would like, I will make a part of the record, indicates that there has been a mail explosion, and I think your reference to the reduction in parcels is confined to zone-rate parcels, as reported in the cost ascertainment report, and as I pointed out yesterday, that decline the significance of that decline is beclouded because certain items have been removed from the zone-rate parcels, the most significant of which is the removal of packages from 8 to 16 ounces. The total volume of mail in the post offices is such that everything I have available to me indicates anything but an excess of underutilized space. (The aforementioned article from the U.S. News & World Report, as submitted by Mr. Taylor, is as follows:) DANGER OF BREAKDOWN IN MAIL SERVICE? (Unhappy with your postal service? A check of the Post Office Department shows why complaints grow. Volume of mail is soaring, almost getting beyond present capacity. Mails can break down unless modern handling comes to the rescue) Handling the mail is one of the biggest business enterprises in America-and it is in trouble. The post offices are staggering under a growing burden of mail, generated by an expanding population, in a booming economy. Mail volume is passing 74 billion-74,000 million-pieces in 1966. It is increasing at a rate of 3.5 billion annually. Within a few years, the postal system will be called upon to handle 100 billion pieces-100,000 million-and there is no limit in sight. Collapse or curtailment of this essential service under the sheer weight of the mail is feared-unless something is done. Complaints even now are widespread about slow delivery of the mail, shorter hours of window service, less frequent pickup schedules. Other public irritants: undependable special-delivery service, limitations on parcel post, roundabout routing of local mail under the new system of sectionalcenter distribution, slow delivery of letter mail to small cities and towns off main air routes. The crisis in the mail service is compounded by an aging postal plant, mounting costs, archaic hand methods of sorting mail, and a changing transportation system. THE DISAPPEARING TRAINS The postal system was built around railroad operations. Thirty years ago, more than 10,000 passenger trains carried mail. Only 920 such trains now are left. Much of the burden has been shifted to highways and airways. But clerks can't sort mail en route on the trucks and planes as they did on railway postal cars. Post offices were located near rail terminals. On an average, the post offices are 30 years old. Some in big cities-such as New York and Washington-were built 50 years ago. Most of them need new access for trucks, dock space, working area. What has happened to the postal system since World War II? The population of the United States has gained 41 percent-from 140 to 197 million. The number of post offices has declined-from 42,000 to 33,500. Postal employees have increased 78 percent-from 360,000 to 640,000. Mail volume has doubled-from 38 to 74 billion pieces a year. Postal costs have jumped 400 percent-from $1.4 to $5.6 billion. The postal service is running at a loss of nearly a billion dollars a year. The deficit for the year to end June 30 is officially estimated at $937 million. LONG-RANGE REMEDIES Alarmed by the trend, the new Postmaster General, Lawrence F. O'Brien, is counting on two things-automation and customer cooperation-to stem the tide. The Postmaster General wants to "mechanize" the post offices as fast as money and technology will allow-but he has a long way to go, and a lot of lost time to make up. |