The U.S. Postal Service (USPS) has temporarily suspended its employer contributions to a governmentwide pension plan after warning Congress that, without changes, it could run out of cash within the next year.
On Thursday, USPS told the Office of Personnel Management—the federal government’s human resource division—that it would pause its biweekly employer contributions to the Federal Employees Retirement System, or FERS.
The move is expected to conserve about $2.5 billion through Sept. 30, the end of the current fiscal year, according to USPS. The mail agency typically pays about $200 million every other week into the plan.
USPS Chief Financial Officer Luke Grossmann said the temporary withholding would have no “immediate detrimental impact” on current or future retirees. He said the agency would continue forwarding employees’ own FERS contributions, as well as all regularly scheduled payments to the Thrift Savings Plan, another retirement program for federal workers….