The people who run the U.S. Postal Service say they face a desperate financial situation,

with billions of dollars in losses each year.

They say the elimination of Saturday home deliveries would cut more than $3 billion in

annual costs and would be a major step toward saving the Postal Service from total collapse.

Mail carriers who work in the trenches see it differently.

"If we do this, we're decreasing the quality of our service and making it easier for our

competitors to beat us," Robert J. McLennan, president of the Buffalo branch of the National

Association of Letter Carriers, said today. "We're also going to be eliminating 40,000 to

50,000 jobs, good jobs, all over the country."

McLennan was one of about a dozen speakers who voiced opinions at a public hearing on the

issue of eliminating Saturday home mail delivery. The hearing was sponsored by the Postal

Regulatory Commission and held in the Common Council Chambers of Buffalo's City Hall.

It was the seventh and final public hearing for the commission, which will put together an

advisory report that Congress will examine before ultimately making the decision on whether to

eliminate Saturday mail delivery.

Most of the speakers either work for the Postal Service, or for businesses that depend on

the Postal Service to get their products out to the public.

Kathleen Burns, who leads 6,800 employees in the region as manager of the Western New York

division of the Postal Service, said she supports the Saturday cutbacks.

The increased use of e-mail and Internet bill payments has put the Postal Service in a

"grim" situation, and "drastic action" is needed to cut costs, she said.

In the first quarter of 2010, the amount of mail handled in Western and Central New York

was 23 percent lower than it was during the same period of 2005, Burns said.

"The household and business customers to whom I talk all seem to understand that the Postal

Service faces difficult choices, and that no easy solutions lie within our grasp," Burns said.

The Postal Service said it finished its 2009 fiscal year with a net loss of $3.8 billion.

The Postal Service receives no money from taxes and funds itself entirely with money it

receives from customers for postage.

Several business people — including J.B. Brown, manager of corporate products for

Rich Products Corp., and Bill McComb, vice president for postal operations with the Netflix

company — said they will support the change, but only if it is part of a bigger plan to

cut Postal Service expenses.

Very few companies use the Postal Service as much as Netflix, which ships about 2 million

movie DVDs to its customers each business day. McComb said the company spends about $600

million in postage each year.

If Netflix had its choice, the Postal Service would deliver its DVDs seven days a week, not

five, McComb said. But if eliminating Saturday deliveries would help the Postal Service save

itself, Netflix would support the move.

"We are concerned about the long-term health, reliability and viability of the Postal

Service," McComb said.

Two very interested observers of the hearing were Jordan M. Small, vice president for

network operations with the Postal Service, and Jim Berry of Lockport, a retired mail carrier.

Small, who spoke to The Buffalo News before the hearing, said the Postal Service has made

many changes nationwide to consolidate operations and cut costs. He said the Postal Service

expects those changes to save $3.5 billion a year, but still needs to make more cuts.

"Our business model is broken and the situation is grave, unless we're able to make needed

changes, including five-day delivery," Small said.

If no changes are made, the Postal Service could accumulate a $238 billion deficit within

the next decade, Small said.

Berry, 64, stood at the back of the Council spectators area, holding up a cardboard sign

protesting the plan to cut Saturday deliveries.

He told reporters that senior citizens who depend on the mail for pension checks, Social

Security checks and prescription drugs will be hurt the most if Saturday service is stopped.

"I'm concerned about my pension check. If the first of the month comes on a Saturday, I

wouldn't get my check until Monday," Berry said. "Same for anybody who gets a Social Security

check. How about medicines coming in from the VA? It's not right."

The plan proposed by U.S. Postmaster John E. Potter calls for the elimination of Saturday

delivery to homes, businesses and other addresses, but deliveries to post office boxes and

express mail would continue.

One thing that Potter is also trying to change is a federal regulation that forces the

Postal Service to pre-fund retiree health benefits. Potter recently asked that the pre-funding

requirement be relaxed, which he believes would save the Postal Service about $4.6 billion a

year.

McLennan said postal carriers and other postal employees are upset because no one in top

management of the Postal Service asked for their ideas before proposing a cut in Saturday mail

service.

"Our people are out there on the streets every day, talking to the customers," McLennan

said. "The people who made this decision sit in offices."