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The quarter ending Dec. 31 was a hard one for the US Postal Service. Revenue and mail volume were down. Expenses were up. And service performance fell off. At a meeting of the Board of Governors Feb. 8, chief financial officer Richard J. Strasser, Jr., reported that revenue was down 1.4 percent and expenses increased 4.0 percent compared to the same period last year. The decline was expected because the spike in mail volume during the election year 2004 increased revenue by 12.6 percent, said Strasser. The 3.8 percent loss of First-Class Mail volume compared to the same period last year cost USD415 million in revenue. Standard Mail volume increased during the same period, as did Express Mail and Priority Mail, but the revenue generated from those services is not enough to offset the lost revenue from First-Class Mail, Strasser said. Mail service declined in all of its three main categories, according to Postmaster General John E. Potter.

The Senate on Thursday unanimously approved legislation, authored by Sen. Tom Carper, to modernize the United States Postal Service and make it viable for the 21st century. The legislation, the first major overhaul of the USPS since 1970, would help stabilize mail volume and stamp prices, securing thousands of Delaware postal jobs and helping area businesses, like the banking industry, that rely heavily on the mail. The legislation, written by Carper and Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee Chairwoman Susan Collins, would force the Postal Service to concentrate on what it does best – processing and delivering mail to all Americans. The bill, entitled the Postal Accountability and Enhancement Act, would dramatically rethink the way the Postal Service prices its products by giving it the same ability any other business has to change prices whenever it needs to do so. But to protect businesses and mailers from sudden and dramatic price hikes, the legislation would ensure that price increases be kept below an inflation-based ceiling.