WASHINGTON, DC — The below remarks are as prepared for delivery by Postmaster General and CEO Louis DeJoy during the open session meeting of the Postal Service Board of Governors on Feb. 9, 2023.
“Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
As the Chairman has identified, we have accomplished a great deal since the release of the Delivering for America Plan.
The Postal Service leadership team continues to push forward to implement the strategies defined in the Delivering for America Plan that we feel will transform the Postal Service into a vibrant and self-sustaining service organization delivering postal services to the American people for many years to come.
Our mission to deliver mail and packages to 165 million addresses across the nation through an integrated network and cover our costs is what the Congress has legislated we do, and what the Delivering for America Plan seeks to fulfill.
Our efforts continue to be focused on five key areas:
- Improving our operating precision
- Improving our service reliability
- Reducing our cost of performance
- Increasing our revenue
- And creating productive and enjoyable long-term career paths for all our employees
While there is still a long way to go, we are beginning to see good momentum and engagement across our executive leadership team—out through our field executives and onto our supervisors.
This new emphasis on not only doing things right—but doing the right things…the things that a modern service organization needs to do to survive in a competitive environment…is beginning to create energy, focus and improvement across every function of our entity.
We are actively engaged with our union and management association leadership and together we are leading our employees to participate in this remarkable turnaround endeavor.
Across our organization, everyone is participating in the roll out of our new Regional Processing Network, the development and implementation of our new Delivery Unit Strategy, the creation of our new ground transportation network, the implementation of improved operating practices, the introduction of new products and services, the modernization of our technology, and a host of other exciting improvement initiatives across the organization—including the rollout of 106,000 new vehicles of which 66,000 will be electric.
This new vehicle initiative along with our major efforts to improve our network operating practices will make the United States Postal Service a leader in carbon footprint reduction.
On the service front, Scott Bombaugh will provide you more details, but we have had continued stability across all products and throughout most of the nation. Service misses are short in duration with 96% of the nation’s population receiving their market dominant mail in less than 3 days. For those of you in the 4%, we are working hard to correct our service difficulties in your areas and will do so urgently.
Concerning our financial performance, Joe Corbett will provide you more details, and we are making good progress in work hour reductions and transportation savings, however, inflation reigns dominant in our cost structure and eliminates the gains we are making. Our efforts will continue and in time their positive results will prove successful.
I would like to thank my leadership team for their steadfast commitment to our strategies and for their hard work. I am proud of their performance and my association with them.
I also would like to thank our Governors for their continued support of our strategy and their work to understand the magnitude of the complications involved in unwinding the many years of damage inflicted on this organization and establishing sound practices for the future.
Across the board we have had great support and collaboration for our initiatives, including mailers, the Congress and various teams at the White House and other Federal agencies.
I thank them all for their collaboration and support in the specific initiatives that we engage together.
This is a new Postal Service, recognizing it is a new day in a new economy and we are leading the way to improve this cherished institution from the destruction that started in 2006 and we cannot move fast enough.
Unfortunately, there are some stakeholders around us stuck in the past, as far back as 2006, and I again ask that all stakeholders recognize the urgency we face in making the changes we are pursuing for the nation.
We are dedicated to serving the American people as legislated by Congress. The revenue derived from the monopoly we have does not cover its cost-of-service performance.
We must in an expeditious manner make the changes we are pursuing.
I thank the women and men of the United States Postal Service for their commitment to the nation.”