This is one in a series of articles highlighting Breaking Gov’s best stories of the past year. As we reflected on our 2011 coverage of innovation, technology and management amongst the federal agencies and workforce, this was among the stories that stood out as delivering key insight into the top issues facing today’s government community.
The past year has seen the 200-year-old U.S. Postal Service in crisis and its future remains grim.
Executives have pleaded with Congress for help and faced the potential layoff of thousands of workers. Most recently, the inspector general proposed that going into the email business might help pull the agency out of debt. There was also hope the holiday shipping season would provide the struggling U.S. Postal Service with a much needed infusion of revenue, but hardly enough to stop its financial meltdown.
Still, the mail service will head into 2012 still buckling under a $5.1 billion debt without a clear path forward.