Leadership in Washington D.C. was informative and busy.  I would like to urge everyone to contact their Congressman and Senators to support HR 22 and the Senate bill when one is introduced.  Please stress to the lawmakers this is not a taxpayer funded issue.  We visited all seven Oklahoma lawmakers’ offices while in Washington DC and received positive feedback from all but one.  Education would be a promising subject at that one.  We just didn’t believe that office had seen the correct information about the bill.  It still amazes me that many people do not realize the U S Postal Service is not taxpayer funded.

The economy is constantly on everyone’s minds these days.  One item that you still need to be funding is PAC.  PAC allows us to help elect people who support Postmasters and the Postal Service.  This issue of the Sooner is dedicated to PAC.  If you have not donated to PAC this year, do so now.  If you don’t have the envelope mailed to you from the National NAPUS office, contact Brent Cofield, Postmaster, Blair.  If you have donated to PAC this year, send another donation.  Brent has forms for withdrawel directly out of your NAPUS FCU checking account or you can do an allotment out of your paycheck.   SUPPORT PAC.         

Many Postmasters are not in the place in their career where they can consider the VERA offers.  Many are still interested in upward mobility.  When asked to go on a Detail/OIC assignment for the District, you need to consider many things before accepting.  Am I able to do the assignment successfully?  Will this benefit me in my future career?  What impact will this have on my family?  What impact will this have on my health, especially if you are my age?  How will this affect my NPA for the year?  If you are not in an office for 180 consecutive days, your NPA is based on the NPA of the assignment you are in at the end of the FY.  This means if your home office has a twelve but the office you go into has a three, you receive a three for your NPA year end rating.  I didn’t know this, evidently at least one of the POOMs in the OK district didn’t know this, our District Manager approved recourse for a PM in this situation this year, AND it was disapproved by Area.  This amounted to several thousand dollars for one Oklahoma PM this year.  I have since heard of two Oklahoma PMs that it happened to for FY 2007.  I wish I would have known so we could have put an article in the Sooner telling other Postmasters of the rule.  In a sermon recently, the preacher stated that we learn by experience.  Please help other PMs learn by your experience and not have to experience things themselves.  I have been a Postmaster for twenty four years.  Do I know everything?  No.  In paraphrasing a Kennedy quote: ‘Ask not what NAPUS can do for you, ask what you can do for fellow Postmasters’.

See you in Alaska.