Going up

This month's jump in price for postage stamps will be larger than any Postmistress Pam Craig has seen before in her 31-year career. Prior to the January 27 increase of 5 cents for a first class letter stamp, Craig is encouraging the community to purchase forever stamps at the current price.

"I've ordered a lot – and I can order more," she smiles. "They're good forever for the price of a one-ounce letter. So if you buy them up to the day before the rate goes up, you could save 5 cents for the rest of the year – or two years, or three years, or however long you want to do it."

The Sundance Post Office is expecting an increase in sales before the price increase and has made sure it will have a large supply on hand of books of 20 stamps and rolls of 100 stamps, Craig says. The increase itself, she notes, is an aftershock from a federal mandate that went into effect 12 years ago.

"Congress mandated in 2006 that the Post Office pre-fund employees' healthcare and retirement – and they're talking about people who haven't been born yet; future generations of postal employees," Craig explains.

"We're the only company in America that has this mandate. No other corporate company, no other entity in the federal government or the private sector, has been mandated by law that they must do this."

The directive costs around $6 billion per year and has made life difficult for the Post Office, Craig continues, due to the way the service has been structured.

"We were basically cut loose from receiving any taxpayer money in 1977. Since then we have slowly learned to make a profit and we have done quite well," she says. That changed after the mandate.

"Every single year since, we have been in the red. We have seen multiple increases since 2006 and that's basically why."

While USPS is a quasi-government entity, it must still make enough money to keep the doors open.

"We are mandated to run like a business, yet we are not allowed to make business decisions that make sense, such as pricing and how we go about our business. We can't just set our own prices, we have to go through the rate commission and then Congress approves whether or not we can actually do it," she says.

"It's a very long, complicated process that does not happen overnight – it takes months to get a rate increase approved and there have been times where they have come back and said no or they have said we need to lower the price."

Congress has only lowered the price once during Craig's career – by a penny, she smiles, a few years ago. She recalls that it wasn't long before the price then rose by two or three pennies to recoup some of what was lost.

Costs must be covered for USPS to fulfill its stated goal: to provide some form of delivery to every address in America. It's the only service capable of doing so even in modern times.

"It's a very difficult task that the Post Office has trying to provide service for the American people. We deliver 95 percent of what FedEx, UPS, DHL and Amazon deliver in rural America. The Post Office is their final mile," she says.

"We have the infrastructure, we have the ability and we have the knowledge to get packages delivered to every address in America. No other company in America has that ability."

This was already an undertaking back when there were just 13 colonies. Now with 50 states and overseas territories to boot, Craig points out that the Post Office's price point is still so reasonable.

"If you compare our prices to other countries, we beat their prices still – even with the five cent increase," she says.

Deliveries have changed over the years due to the internet, which has proven to be a double-edged sword for USPS. While fewer people write letters these days, more of us order products online, from jewelry to dog food.

"We've had a record number of parcels come into the office this year. It's a growing business and we set records at Christmas that we didn't see last year," Craig says. Christmas 2018 saw more parcels come through Sundance Post Office than ever before.

"It gets bigger every year but this year was the biggest increase I've ever seen."

Negotiations are ongoing to lift the mandate that caused the January 27 price increase. In the meantime, Craig reiterates that forever stamps will be available until the deadline.

"I want my customer to enjoy some savings. It's a hardship, especially for older Americans on a fixed income, when stamps go up," she says.

"Businesses too – it affects their bottom line. We at the Sundance Post Office care about our customers' bottom line and we just want the information to get to them so they are not caught unaware and have the chance to save some money."