Deputy Postmaster General Doug Turino temporarily assumes his position.
Postmaster Louis DeJoy announced that nearly five years of tenure as the 75th leader of the US Postal Service will soon be over on March 24th.
The announcement comes 10 days after he agreed to work with the Ministry of Government Efficiency (DOGE) and the General Services Agency (GSA) on ways to make his department more efficient, and the first phase of enhancement of services is expected to be implemented.
However, despite his departure, Dejoy expressed his confidence that “as the entire postal service actively shapes its future and continuously changes and improves to serve the American people best, it will become more efficient, competent and competitive.”
Postal Services reported a net loss of $9.5 billion in 2024 from a 6.5 billion loss in 2023.
White House adviser Elon Musk is calling for its privatization, and President Donald Trump has suggested it could move under the Commerce Department. However, all three men seemed to agree that immediate change was necessary.
“It has long been known that postal services have broken business models that are not financially sustainable without much needed and fundamental core changes,” DeJoy said in a letter to Congress on March 13th. “Fixing a broken organization that experienced nearly $100 billion in losses and was projected to lose another $200 billion without bankruptcy proceedings is a challenging task.”
DeJoy’s final week as a postmaster general seemed to be headed towards the kickstart of that change. In that letter to Congress, he said 10,000 employees are scheduled to begin voluntary early retirements, and his department has cut 50 million working hours and brought in $2.5 billion in savings.
He also asked Doge to investigate mismanagement of the department’s workers’ compensation program. He has brought in $400 million a year with “overcampus” and called the Postal Regulation Commission “an unnecessary institution that has awarded more than $500 billion in damages.”
“While our management team and the men and women of postal services have established a path to financial sustainability and high operating performance, we have enacted a major beneficial change in what was an ad-lift and mullian organization.
The USPS agreement with Doge attracted the outrage of the American Postal Workers Union (APWU).
“Our collective bargaining agreement is between the APWU and the Postal Service, and “the union stated on March 14th.” Any effort by Doge or other entities will involve immediate and sustained resistance by postal workers to undermine our union’s rights or target contractual protections and working conditions. ”
Dejoy revealed in a statement that he notified the Governor’s Postal Service Committee of his intention to retire in February, and Deputy Master General General Doug Tulino will temporarily assume his position until the Postal Service Committee chooses a permanent replacement.
“I am confident that Doug will continue our positive momentum as the governor assumes the important task of identifying and selecting the next postmaster general,” DeJoy said.
Katabella Roberts and Naveen Athrapplely contributed to this report.
