Maxwell School professor appointed to national postal-service reform panel

SYRACUSE — Walter D. Broadnax, a professor at the Maxwell School of Syracuse University, has been appointed to a panel leading an independent review of a plan to “breathe new life into the U.S. Postal Service (USPS) through public-private partnership,” the school announced today.

The National Academy of Public Administration (NAPA) commissioned the review in response to what it viewed as a lack of consensus over how to reform the USPS as it faces financial stresses threatening its existence.

The USPS lost almost $16 billion last year as it was squeezed by sharply declining first-class mail volumes in an increasingly digital world, competition from the private sector, its own high-cost infrastructure, and retiree-benefit funding mandates. On Feb. 6, the postal service announced it would end Saturday delivery starting in August, a move that could save it $2 billion annually.

The NAPA panel is considering a proposal by postal industry experts that calls for a new hybrid public-private partnership model for the USPS. This model would allow private companies to compete to process and transport packages, handling a majority of postal operations. But USPS letter carriers would still be responsible for driving or walking the “last mile” of delivery and pickup routes. The NAPA panel will seek advice from an array of stakeholder groups to identify key challenges facing the postal service and then offer recommendations for potential reform in March, according to the Maxwell School. A roundtable discussion of the group’s report, which will include key policymakers and stakeholders, will be held at that time.

With no major postal-reform package currently on the table in Congress, the NAPA study will “provide valuable information about potential systemic alterations to the business model of a system that provides the infrastructure for eight million jobs and more than seven percent of the nation’s GDP,” the Maxwell School said in its release.

Before joining the Maxwell School, Broadnax served as president of Clark Atlanta University, dean of the School of Public Affairs at American University, and professor at the University of Maryland, where he directed the Bureau of Governmental Research. Before that, he oversaw the restructuring of the Social Security Administration while deputy secretary and chief operating officer of the Department of Health and Human Services. Broadnax earned a Ph.D. from the Maxwell School in 1975.

Contact Rombel at arombel@cnybj.com