The Postal Service has notified the National Rural Letter Carriers Association (NRLCA) that a national rural mail count will be conducted for all rural routes during the last 12 working days in September. The mail count will begin on September 17, 2012. District offices will provide Postmasters with additional information on preparing for the mail count, as soon as possible.

OPM Reduces Retirement Processing Backlog

In a report provided by FederalNewsRadio.com, federal retirement claims ticked slightly upward in July, but the Office of Personnel Management for the third month in a row processed more claims than anticipated and continued cutting back on a longstanding backlog of claims. OPM has mostly met its processing benchmarks since January, falling short of its goal in only one month so far this year.

That steady progress has allowed the agency to continue cutting back on a backlogged inventory of claims that has long plagued the agency. OPMs report of the reduction in backlogged claims comes as encouraging news to the more than 4,100 Postmasters who will have retired by the end of September of this year.

Charlie Moser
August 9, 2012