|
|
|  | |||
|
|
|
| |||
Mail Rates Enter a Zone of UncertaintyMay 7, 2002 - It's no secret that with e-mail growing in popularity and first-class mail volume stagnant -- not to mention the anthrax scare -- financial woes at the U.S. Postal Service have been growing. The Service's "transformation plan" released April 5 proposed some fairly radical changes. Most relevant to publishers, however, are issues raised in a rate settlement just two weeks earlier -- as well as some mysteriously not mentioned in that document. The agreement approved by the independent Postal Rate Commission on March 22 marks the first time a postal rate increase ever has been resolved through settlement, not through litigation. First-class mail costs will rise three cents to 37 cents for the first ounce; overall, periodical rates will rise by about 10 percent. But classroom publishers -- a subgroup of educational publishing that in 1962 legislation was granted a 40 percent discount off the regular periodical rate -- has already been reduced to a five percent discount since being classed with nonprofits in 2000. According to Stephen Owen of the Classroom Publishers Association, classroom publishers will suffer an additional 12 percent postal rate increase, on top of more-than-doubled costs over the past 20 years, when the settlement is implemented on June 30, 2002. CPA's August 2001 proposal to the post office for a three-cent, per-piece editorial discount has not been adopted as part of the current settlement; Owen says his group, whose six member companies also belong to AEP, intends to keep trying. And curiously, a highly controversial aspect of the Postal Service's original proposal filed in September 2001 isn't even brought up in the settlement. At that time, remembers Garry Myers of Highlights, also chairman of the CPA, "the proposed rates showed a schedule for the editorial rate per pound that was scaled over the zones in the same way as the advertising rates per pound. For any magazine which is significantly editorial content, as opposed to advertising content, this new approach would have serious cost consequences." The settlement shows the pound rate for editorial material at a uniform 19.3 cents, while advertising rates swing from 24.8 cents up to 63.8 cents, depending upon zone. "There was a big fight over this issue during the settlement procedure," remembers Owen, whose association participated in the process. That the additional zoning wasn't enacted was a relief, he says. Yet even with new revenue raised by the latest increases, the Postal Service still anticipates a $2 billion deficit in 2002, Owen pointed out recently in a letter to his members. Owen and Myers caution that the Postal Service might push for the change to a "zoned" treatment of editorial in its next rate case, expected in fall 2002. At that point, all publishers of mailed periodicals may be affected: "The zoned increase will very likely be true for both 'for profit' and 'not for profit' publications," Myers points out. • AEP will continue to follow postal rate issues; look for related information at our June conference. • For more background information visit the Postal Rate Commission and the U.S. Postal Service. • Contact the Classroom Publishers Association at (202) 965-2650. | |||||
|
© 2008 The Association of Educational Publishers | |||||
