{"id":1374,"date":"2010-09-14T06:32:41","date_gmt":"2010-09-14T11:32:41","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/postalemployeenetwork.com\/news\/?p=1374"},"modified":"2010-09-14T06:32:41","modified_gmt":"2010-09-14T11:32:41","slug":"postal-service-overpaid-6-8b-to-fers-pension-fund","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/postalemployeenetwork.com\/news\/2010\/09\/14\/postal-service-overpaid-6-8b-to-fers-pension-fund\/","title":{"rendered":"Postal Service overpaid $6.8B to FERS pension fund"},"content":{"rendered":"

Postal Service overpaid $6.8B to FERS pension fund<\/strong>
\nNALC Bulletin September 2010<\/a><\/p>\n

The Civil Service Retirement System is not the only \u201cbeneficiary\u201d of a massive Office of Personnel Management miscalculation, a new report shows.<\/p>\n

A crucial component of the NALC\u2019s campaign to prevent the U.S. Postal Service from cutting Saturday mail delivery service has been to shore up the Service\u2019s finances by recouping between $50 billion and $75 billion that the Service has overpaid into CSRS, the result of an accounting error dating back to the formation of the USPS in 1971.<\/p>\n

Now, an August 16 report filed by USPS Deputy Assistant Inspector General for Financial Accountability John Cihota finds that the OPM has overcharged the Federal Employees Retirement System as well, to the tune of $6.8 billion.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt is important that the trend of overpayments does not continue,\u201d Cihota wrote. \u201cThe Postal Service faces a challenging future and its responsibilities and the true cost of funding postal operations needs to be absolutely clear.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Service contributed $3 billion to its pension plans in fiscal 2009, and has funded 99 percent of its future obligations, while the federal government funded just 41 percent of its future pension costs.<\/p>\n

These latest findings compound concerns about the Postal Service\u2019s retiree benefits funds. USPS Inspector General David Williams reported in January that the Service has overpaid into its CSRS account by $75 billion, the result of an OPM miscalculation that forces the USPS to pay a higher portion of the pensions than it owed.<\/p>\n

Cihota\u2019s report notes that variables such as sick-leave credit, mortality estimates and future return rates are critical to calculating FERS funding obligations and determining how much of the $6.8 billion surplus could be used to address other financial issues.<\/p>\n

The report recommended that the Postal Service pursue legislative action to adjust its funding requirements until the FERS surplus is reduced.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, H.R. 5746, which addresses the Service\u2019s CSRS surplus issue, will be taken up by the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform when Congress ends its summer recess and resumes regular business September 13.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Postal Service overpaid $6.8B to FERS pension fund NALC Bulletin September 2010 The Civil Service Retirement System is not the only \u201cbeneficiary\u201d of a massive Office of Personnel Management miscalculation, a new report shows. A crucial component of the NALC\u2019s campaign to prevent the U.S. Postal Service from cutting Saturday mail delivery service has been […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[20],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1374","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-nalc-news","last_archivepost"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/postalemployeenetwork.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1374","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/postalemployeenetwork.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/postalemployeenetwork.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/postalemployeenetwork.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/postalemployeenetwork.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1374"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/postalemployeenetwork.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1374\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1376,"href":"https:\/\/postalemployeenetwork.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1374\/revisions\/1376"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/postalemployeenetwork.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1374"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/postalemployeenetwork.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1374"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/postalemployeenetwork.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1374"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}