CONTINUED INCREASE IN INCOMING MAIL

Mr. ROTA. We received in the past weeks-just in the past weeks, some of you have already called my office about it—some 30 million pieces of mail that will be counted in next calendar year volumes, on social security. So the nature of incoming mail has changed drastically since 1972.

The chart that I have here, if you will look, 1972 mail was only 14.6 million. In 1973, the Congress held the first big hearings-relating to the President at that time——

Mr. FAZIO. Watergate.

Mr. ROTA. Watergate.

It was our first mailing involving the impeachment of the President. This was our first computer card-type mailing, and in the first month came in 31⁄2 million pieces of mail for the Committee on the Judiciary. It was unheard of at that time to have that type of volume.

The organizations now that handle your large mailings, they go to the direct mailings now with public interest mailings on issues such as social security, steel interests, and immigration, abortion, and others. That mail now is deposited for drop mailing at the House Post Office, and most of those are in millions of pieces of mail which we handle.

Mr. MYERS. Is it correct to say in-coming mail times a million, and you have 220, so that would be 220 million came in, but 200 million

Mr. ROTA. What chart-

Mr. MYERS. The top chart.

Mr. ROTA. Outgoing mail is greater than that coming in.

Mr. MYERS. I thought 20 million pieces of mail didn't get answered. Somebody else didn't answer their mail besides me.

Mr. ROTA. I don't have the figures before me.

Mr. MYERS. What is the bottom figure, 200 million, the bottom figure? What is that down there?

Mr. ROTA. They just ran that out, sir. That is just a chart.

Mr. TRAXLER. It doesn't mean anything, John.

Mr. ROTA. Instead of stopping at 200, they ran it to 220.

Mr. MYERS. You are saying

Mr. ROTA. If you run it across.

Mr. MYERS. You have to handle coming and going both, don't you? How many did you handle going out, and how many-— Mr. TRAXLER. He will get to that.

Mr. MYERS. He has another chart for that.

Mr. ROTA. The 1984 total continues to reflect the growth of the volume experienced over the past decade. Most of this mail reflects that of direct campaign mailings, as I said before. Today's volume is five times what it was when I was first elected Postmaster some 12 years ago, 200 million pieces of mail. And the number of buildings we serve has increased by 50; and the number of stops, 61 percent. And we have been able to add 18 new services.

NEW PASSPORT SERVICE AVAILABLE TO MEMBERS AND CONSTITUENTS

The latest new service is that we handle all your passports now. We take care of that in my office. Just come to the office; we will take care of everything.

With the cooperation of the Speaker, the Secretary of State has placed a passport officer in my office three days a week to expedite the Members' passports and provide same day passport service to Members.

Mr. TRAXLER. Does that include the photograph service, as well? Mr. ROTA. Yes, sir; everything. You don't have to leave-we also work with them on your constituents' passports. All the visa work that is coming out of there will come through on the telex. It saves a lot of time; saves employees from leaving the Hill. We are operating right on the Hill now. No one needs to leave.

Mr. FAZIO. Do you have a staff assistant to help you?

Mr. ROTA. Yes. They are placed in our office by the Secretary of State. They work there three days a week. They handle Members' requests. We arrange for the photographs, we try to get it back-in the same day. Most times, we can get them back the following day.

971 LIMITED GROWTH IN POSTMASTER'S STAFF

Mr. FAZIO. But, your staff is pretty much steady, it has not grown. Is that what you are telling us?

How many employees do you have now?

Mr. ROTA. Over the 12 years, it has grown some. We have grown 24 employees. But the mail has increased five times.

Mr. FAZIO. You started out with how many?

Mr. ROTA. We started at 87; added 6 new permanent positions for mail security scanners in 1974. In 1978, we added 5 permanent new mail clerks; 1981, we added 10 new permanent mail clerks; and this past year we asked for 17 temporary and also 3 new permanent employees, adding to the number of the permanent employees, for a total of 111 at the present time, with 17 temporaries expiring May 11, for a total of 128.

Mr. FAZIO. Are you going to be asking for any increases in this budget?

Mr. ROTA. No, sir; I hope not.

Mr. FAZIO. Were the temporaries enough to get you through?
Mr. ROTA. Well, right at the present time.

EXPEDITE MAIL DELIVERY TO MEMBERS

Mrs. BOGGS. You do have extra zip code numbers when you do bulk mailing that goes to our districts, so I will assume having them come in would also be a help.

Mr. ROTA. We have asked different companies to give an estimate as to a machine cost to do this. It is the member's mail. The members have the say on it. We just thought maybe if it would work

Mrs. BOGGS. I think anything that expedites moving the regular mail in a timely fashion during a huge influx of generated mail is a good idea.

Mr. ROTA. We have been able to get your mail to you, we receive mail every hour on the hour, dispatching mail every hour on the hour. We have been able to have that mail delivered to the member's offices with the exception in the past several years of some occasional delays when large mass mailings would come in-at one time we were seven days behind.

We could not work just the letter mail. Everything was mixed together. They were sending it by private carriers, buses, et cetera, and whenever they come through the couriers, if they would send it that way, it was much easier because then we don't have to mix it with the regular mail.

Mr. FAZIO. I think any cost savings we can engage in at this point is very valuable.

DISCUSSION ON EFFECT COMPUTER HAS MADE REGARDING MASS

MAILINGS

Mr. TRAXLER. One thing sort of stands out on the chart, and that is the explosion in Congressional mail. I haven't seen your outgoing yet, and I probably don't want to see it. Looking at your incoming chart, I don't know how-what your hope is of not having additional employees in view of the kinds of increases that I see on that graph, and if you want to give me 10 numbers to the mass mailers and assign them to me, that is fine, and I will even negotiate with Viguerie and Roosevelt with you.

Mr. ROTA. So far, increased productivity has been able to handle the increase.

Mr. TRAXLER. I want to know what happened between 1977 and 1978, in your opinion, to justify

Mr. ROTA. Social Security in 1981.

Mr. TRAXLER. Look at your chart. From 1977 to 1978, you had a 100 percent increase in your mail. According to the chart.

Mr. ROTA. This was due to the large mass mailings. May I say something

Mr. TRAXLER. I think what you are telling us is that this was really the age in which the supermail computer really went to work.

Mr. ROTA. Yes. The same as what you are receiving with Social Security now.

Mr. TRAXLER. Outside of House?

Mr. ROTA. It is all outside of House. This campaign has gone on at the present time with Social Security that you are familiar with. That type of mailing was the type that really took off about that time.

Mr. MYERS. That was the notch year.

Mr. TRAXLER. There is a second thing here, the ability on the part of the computer to generate that kind of mail with the addresses and sophistication and the merchandizing of causes by computer. Apparently it really caught on in 1978.

Mr. ROTA. That is what I feel contributed to this growth, exactly. Mr. TRAXLER. And we haven't seen an end to it.

Mr. ROTA. No.

She

Mr. TRAXLER. We could probably enact a law saying that no Member can respond to computer cards mail so that we can't answer them. That would save us all.

Mr. LEWIS. I suggested to the Chairman earlier, as an aside, that if you had 10,000 come to my office or someone's office, that the Postal Service would simply send us one card with a number attached saying how many numbers you got. That would prevent that.

Mr. TRAXLER. Thank you.

Mr. LEWIS. Mr. Chairman?

Mr. FAZIO. Mr. Lewis.

OCCASIONAL DELAY IN DELIVERING INSIDE MAIL

Mr. LEWIS. Mr. Rota, I have a concern about the fact that from time to time inside mail takes a little longer than one might hope. Mr. ROTA. It shouldn't.

Mr. LEWIS. Sometimes things arrive two or three days after they are sent. The extension of that question is, if we are going to be reading incoming mail by way of a machine, wouldn't that lead to an extra time lapse between the time it arrives and the time it is delivered?

Mr. ROTA. No, sir. I know the problem that you are having, if you are having it. I hope not. The inside mail should never take any longer-if mailed at 11 o'clock, you should receive it no later than 2 p.m. the same day. Nine o'clock, you receive it at 11 a.m. the same day.

What happens is many a time the staff of the members, as well as my staff, may place that inside mail in the wrong containers. In my handbook that I have just sent you, a recent booklet telling you how to get the best services out of the Office of the PostmasterMr. LEWIS. Mine hasn't arrived yet.

Mr. ROTA. I will carry it to you. If the inside mail is separated and should it not be, my personnel is expected to do that. Sometimes they are in a hurry or behind on their scheduling, I am sure some of them say, "Well, I will just stick it in the outgoing mail, let it go and the Postal Service will kick it back, and then we will get it back here. That is exactly what happens to the mail occasionally because if it is placed in the right containers, and my personnel handle it right, it should never be any longer than 9 to 11, 11 to 2; and anything after 2 p.m., you should receive it no later than the 7 a.m. mail in the morning. It never should go beyond that period, no matter if it is cartons, containers, envelopes, whatever it might be. The delays occur when inside mail is inadvertantly mixed in with outgoing mail.

Mr. LEWIS. The Chairman and I will have an experiment.

Mr. ROTA. We do that to check our personnel with the inside mail.

DISCUSSION REGARDING ORANGE BAG SERVICE

Mr. FAZIO. Mr. Rota, I want to also report that the orange bag is still taking three days to be delivered to Mr. Lewis' district, and anything you can do to keep Mr. Lewis happy makes it a lot easier for me.

Mr. ROTA. I understand. We are meeting with them later this week.

Mr. FAZIO. You have a long agenda at this point.

Mr. ROTA. The minute the contracts are complete, we will have no delays at all, but should any Member have something that has to get there immediately, we will take care of it.

Mr. FAZIO. Any other questions for Mr. Rota? I have some questions about additional costs. We can take those up with you later. Ben?

Mr. GUTHRIE. That will be fine.

Mr. FAZIO. Do you want to comment further, Bob, at this time? Mr. ROTA. I will say one thing. The incoming mail growth seems large. Outgoing mail is not greater than the mail that is coming in. It grew by about the same percentage. If it is separated on the charts, you will see they grew proportionately.

Mr. MYERS. Both go in the same direction anyway.

Mr. ROTA. Yes. The more comes in, the more goes out.
Mr. FAZIO. We appreciate your loyal support.

METHODS OF ESTIMATE FRANKED MAIL VOLUME AND COSTS

Mr. LEWIS. Mr. Rota, on your franked mail, do we document our franked mail by way of an estimate, or do we count each letter? Mr. ROTA. From here?

Mr. LEWIS. Yes.

Mr. ROTA. At different times the Postal Service will take samples, for instance, a sack, weigh it, and figure out how many pieces of mail are in there, and they will ask us if their figures meet with ours or have one of us go out to look at it, the Postal Service then bills us according to the type of mail.

Mr. LEWIS. The reason for the question is I am informed that the Library of Congress was guesstimating or estimating the numbers of franked mail. They went to a postage meter and the cost of mailing went down.

Mr. MYERS. You mean you have to open every bag and meter it, is that what you are suggesting?

Mr. ROTA. You are not counting the interoffice mail that they are circulating through us?

2

Mr. LEWIS. Why don't you check with the Library of Congress and get the specifics and report back for the record.

SUGGESTIONS TO SAVE ON OUTGOING MAIL COSTS

Mr. FAZIO. Before you leave, this is a question that maybe Ben can answer as well. Is there, in your opinion, any way that we might achieve some additional efficiencies or reduce costs by using presort rates, address correction limits, or anything else that comes to mind? Off the top of your head, we will let you tell us how you might save us some money in outgoing mail. Not to say that you can unilaterally implement these, but give us some guidance. We are looking for guidance.

Mr. ROTA. The presort saves on the cost of handling the mail.

Mr. FAZIO. You mean the rates would be reduced? Is that factored into the budget you provide us?