Some Postage Rates Go Up on Sunday

It’s time for postal rates to rise again.

Starting Sunday, many post office charges go up, including the price of sending postcards, magazines, newspapers and utility bills.

The basic 34-cent first-class rate doesn’t change. But if the item weighs more than an ounce the extra charge will be a bit higher.

Facing the possibility of a nearly $2 billion shortfall, the Postal Service is imposing its second rate increase this year.

The agency already has frozen construction projects and hiring.

There also has been talk of applying for an additional increase late this year or next year.

Many mail rates went up in January, including a 1-cent increase in first-class stamps.

But the January raise did not include all the increases postal officials had sought, because of limits placed by the independent Postal Rate Commission.

As rising fuel prices and other costs began pushing the agency into the red, its governing board voted unanimously to overrule the commission and institute the prices that had been rejected earlier.

Even though the July 1 increases complete a set of postal rate boosts originally planned for January, the announcement of the increase brought complaints from Congress and businesses.

“It’s obvious that the ox is in the ditch big time,” Sen. Fred Thompson of Tennessee, the top Republican on the Senate Governmental Affairs Committee, complained at a hearing in May.

Thompson said Congress must review 30-year-old Postal Service laws and “nothing should be off the table, including the future of the postal monopoly itself.” In fact, the Postal Service has for years been seeking an overhaul of the laws governing its operation, but has been unable to get Congress to act.

Postal Board Chairman Robert F. Rider suggested a new classification system for mail services. Under the proposal the agency would maintain its monopoly for basic mail delivery but would have more flexibility with other services.

Rider also proposed labor changes that would allow the agency to operate like a private company, including removing a salary cap and changing the employee salary bargaining system.

The Postal Service, which delivers 668 million pieces of mail a day, does not receive tax money for operations, but is under government oversight.

To impose the new rates, the postal board had to take the unusual step of overruling the independent Postal Rate Commission, something that had happened only once before, in 1981.

While the 34-cent rate for the first ounce of first-class mail remains the same, the cost for each additional ounce will climb from 21 cents to 23 cents.

The price of sending a postcard will rise a penny to 21 cents.

Many other rates increase also, including an across-the-board 0.2 cent per piece boost for all first-class bulk mail.

The new rates will raise the cost of sending a piece of advertising mail by one-half to three-quarters of a cent. It will cost one-half cent more to mail the typical magazine.

U.S. Postal Service: http://www.usps.com

By RANDOLPH E. SCHMID Associated Press Writer WASHINGTON (AP)