WASHINGTON (Reuters) -U.S. Postmaster General Louis DeJoy said on Monday he had asked the government efficiency team led by Elon Musk for assistance with a number of issues, including a review of the agency’s retail center lease renewals and combating counterfeit postage.
In a letter to the U.S. Congress, DeJoy said the U.S. Postal Service needs help with the renewal of leases on its 31,000 retail centers and faces a counterfeit postage that he called a $1 billion problem in need of “additional innovative solutions.”
DeJoy also reiterated in a letter to Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) team that the Postal Service is an independent establishment of the executive branch.
“When the DOGE team recently reached out to me to pitch in, I decided to constructively direct their attention to the areas I know we can use any and all help,” DeJoy said. “The fact is that DOGE is the only other game in town that seems oriented toward helping us to achieve our efficiency and cost goals.”
DeJoy noted that price hikes in retail center renewals were a key issue, with landlords “well aware of the political difficulties we face when moving or consolidating a retail location,” even though half of retail post offices fail to cover the costs of their local operations.
Last week, DeJoy signed an agreement with DOGE to provide assistance to the agency as it works to address “big problems.”
USPS, an agency with 635,000 employees that lost $9.5 billion last year, has been exempt from DOGE-directed federal employee reductions.
DeJoy said last week that USPS plans to reduce its workforce by 10,000 workers in the next month through a voluntary early retirement program first announced in January. The agency has cut 30,000 jobs since 2021.
He cited a number of issues including other government agencies’ management of USPS retirement assets and its workers’ compensation program, unfunded mandates, burdensome regulatory requirements and the government’s calculation of USPS retirement liabilities. DeJoy has not sought DOGE’s help in shrinking the size of the USPS workforce.
DeJoy has led a dramatic effort to restructure USPS over the last five years, including cutting forecasted cumulative losses over a decade to $80 billion from $160 billion. The outgoing postal chief has used tactics similar to the DOGE team, including shrinking the workforce and canceling or renegotiating contracts.
Two media outlets reported last month that President Donald Trump was preparing to issue an executive order to fire the USPS’ board of governors. The White House denied the plan, but Trump said he was considering merging USPS with the Commerce Department, a move Democrats said would violate federal law. Musk said this month he thought USPS should be privatized.
(Reporting by David Shepardson; Editing by Paul Simao)
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