“All stakeholders need to realize that each day lost in executing on our strategy will consume cash and eventually accumulate to a cash deficit that will necessitate more aggressive actions by us or the federal government,” DeJoy said at a Board of Governors meeting last year.
He is not the first postmaster general to grow exasperated with the regulatory commission’s oversight. Under his predecessor Megan Brennan, USPS asked the regulator to give postal management unilateral authority to set its own rates. Despite its mail monopoly, USPS officials argued market constraints alone would prevent the agency from raising rates too high. The regulatory commission instead created a new system that allowed the Postal Service to raise its rates above inflation.
DeJoy reiterated at the conference that he has no plans to pare back his rate increases, which USPS has primarily been instituting twice per year. He did suggest he could eventually limit the hikes to once annually.
Asked to comment on DeJoy’s remarks, the PRC noted its mission is protected by statute.
“As always, the commission stands ready to serve the nation and carry out its role, as defined by law,” the agency said in a statement.
In a recent interview with Government Executive, DeJoy expressed his frustration that whenever he wants to implement a change, he gets “stopped to do a study, to do an evaluation.” The system, he said, is not set up to act with urgency he sees as necessary to meet the demands on his agency.
“That’s why I’m here seven days a week, 15 hours a day,” DeJoy said, “because we are in a race against time.”
