A trio of lawmakers introduced a bill that would cap the sky-high executive salaries at the struggling Postal Service at levels earned by the president’s Cabinet.
Postmaster General Patrick Donahoe received a base salary of $271,871 in 2011, and $384,229 including bonus compensation. Even as the USPS reported a $5.1 billion year-end loss in September, with plans to close some 200 post offices, all of the executives’ base salaries exceeded $200,000.
Reps. Kathy Hochul (D-N.Y.), Morgan Griffith (R-Va.) and Kristi Noem (R-S.D.) introduced the Postal Executive Accountability Act to scale back that pay.
“The postmaster general shouldn’t be making more money than a Cabinet secretary when the postal system is calling on Congress to help them stay solvent,” Noem said.
The bill not only kills executive bonuses in years when the USPS has to close any facility, but caps executive salaries at top Cabinet pay, which was $199,700 in FY2012.
That’s the level earned by Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner and Defense Secretary Leon Panetta. President Obama makes $400,000 a year.
“While American families are struggling to get by and the jobs of thousands of postal employees across the country remain in jeopardy, including 700 employees in Buffalo, it’s absurd to think the Postmaster General and his top executives are making significantly more than Cabinet Secretaries,” Hochul said.
The bill has been referred to the Oversight and Government Reform Committee.
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