U.S. Postal Service More Than Halves Loss in 2002

A series of spending cuts by the United States Postal Service helped the troubled agency cut its losses to $676 million for the fiscal year ended Sept. 30 – more than half of the service’s initial estimate of $1.2 billion.

The service's chief financial officer, Richard Strasser, made the announcement at the monthly meeting of the Postal Service Board of Governors.

The service cut its costs by $1.45 billion during the 2002 fiscal year to $67.4 billion. That total was $185 million below the expenses for fiscal year 2001, the service said.

"This aggressive expense management came despite the fact that our delivery network grew by 1.77 million addresses," Strasser said. "Total revenues for the year came to $66.7 billion, an increase of $819 million over 2001. This is primarily attributable to the settlement of the postal rate case and the early implementation of the new rates."

Postmaster General John Potter said that the service cut 23,000 career employees, paring the workforce back to 1995 levels, "even though we’re delivering 22 billion more pieces of mail and have added 12 million more delivery addresses since then."

For 2003, the Postal Service said it expects to earn $600 million as the economy comes back – its first profit since 1999.