POSTAL GOVERNORS CHOOSE TO REJECT A STAMP RATE HIKE

The new 1991 Christmas postage stamps cost 29 cents, but no price is stamped on them.

"The stamps were printed earlier, and the postal department did not know whether they would be selling for 29 or 30 cents. So they left it blank," said Don Knoth, superintendent of postal operations at the Cape Girardeau Post Office.

It's official now. Americans won't have to pay that extra penny for first-class postage at this time.

The governors of the U.S. Postal Service failed to muster the necessary unanimous vote needed to increase the stamp price by a penny, to 30 cents, Tuesday.

The Postal Service has been seeking the extra penny for more than a year and a half. The governors voted 6-3 in favor of the increase, a Postal Service spokesman said, but a unanimous vote was required to add the extra penny.

"That ends it for now," said Knoth.

The Postal Service requested a 30 cent first class rate 18 months ago. Instead, the rate was set at 29 cents by the independent Postal Rate Commission. The Postal Service twice asked the Rate Commission to reconsider and twice was rejected.

"We're a little disappointed," said Knoth. "The extra revenue from an additional cent on first-class mail would have amounted to a good deal of money."

Postal authorities estimated that the extra penny would have generated another $800 million.

"If we had obtained the 30-cent rate when it was requested, it would have been accepted by now," said Joyce Westrich, Jackson postmaster. "The Postal Service is just trying to break even. Everything affects the postal people. If the price of gasoline goes up, it increases the cost of delivering the mail."

Postmaster General Anthony M. Frank told the Associated Press Tuesday that he could not say the rates will not go up in the future.

Frank said there will be another postage rate increase in early 1994 - instead of 1995 - and another in 1997 or 1998. He estimated the increase in 1994 would be between 3 and 5 cents.

"If we could have had a 30-cent first class stamp we would have needed only one more rate change this decade," Frank said.

For many Americans, the penny difference in first class mailings would not amount to that much.

"A quarter a month maybe," said one consumer, who wanted to remain unidentified. "I buy a book of stamps a month. That means it would have cost me another 24 cents a month. I don't understand why they didn't make it 30 cents when the stamps went to 29 cents."

The savings, however, will be considerable for some of the larger users.

"It will save us quite a bit," said Charlie Hirsch at Southeast Missouri State University. "Our normal meter mail will reach 35,000 to 40,000 pieces a month.

"That does not include the mailing of grades, bills and some miscellaneous mail," added Hirsch."

Cape Mailing and Delivery Service, 2125 William, which offers pre-sort services to several businesses in Cape Girardeau, handles as many as 10,000 to 15,000 pieces of mail each day.

A spokesman of the firm said discounts are allowed for pre-sorting, but there would still be some increase with new rates.

The push to raise the rate to 30 cents began more than a year and a half ago, when the rate was 25 cents.

The independent Postal Rate Commission, in a complex decision affecting all classes of mail, approved a first class rate of only 29 cents, however.

That rate was instituted under protest in February.

Since then, the Postal Service twice has asked the rate commission to reconsider the matter, insisting that the one-cent difference costs it $800 million annually.

The second rejection placed the matter back in the hands of the governors, the presidentially appointed board that supervises the Postal Service.

When the Postal Service replaced the old Post Office Department in 1971, it was directed to operate like a business, breaking even over the long haul. The massive tax subsidy that had been used to hold down postage rates was phased out.

The Postal Service has had five surplus years and five loss years in the last decade, finishing 1989 about $61 million in the black but falling $874 million into the red in 1990. Final figures for fiscal 1991, which ended Sept. 30, are not yet available.

Some information for this story was provided by the Associated Press.