Colloquially, the term "post office" often is employed to refer to any place where stamps are sold and postal services are provided by USPS employees. Post offices, branches, stations, community and contract post offices all offer to the public a range of postal services. They are where many individuals go to buy stamps and ship packages. The USPS, however, administratively differentiates the types of retail postal facilities that conduct these same activities: main post office—The basic organizational unit of the USPS. Generally, each post office has primary responsibility for collection, delivery, and retail operations in a specific geographic area. [Also called "post office."] post office branch—A unit of a main post office that is outside the corporate limits of the city or town of the main post office. [Also called "classified branch."] post office station—A unit of a main post office that is within the corporate limits of the city or town of the main post office. [Also called "classified station."] Each post office is managed by a postmaster; post office branches and stations are not. Branches and stations instead have managers who are under the direction of postmasters. The USPS also provides postal services to customers through privately operated facilities: contract postal unit—A postal unit that is a subordinate unit within the service area of a main post office. It is usually located in a store or place of business and is operated by a contractor who accepts mail from the public, sells postage and supplies, and provides selected special services (for example, postal money order or registered mail). community post office—A contract postal unit that provides service in a community where an independent post office has been discontinued. [It] bears its community's name and ZIP Code as part of a recognized address. Herein, the term "USPS retail postal facilities" will encompass all five of the aforementioned postal facilities—post offices, post office branches, post office stations, community post offices, and contract postal units. The USPS's annual reports contain tabulations of the number of USPS retail postal facilities in existence at the end of each fiscal year. Figure 1 presents data on the number of facilities from FY1971 through FY2012. Over time, the USPS has altered the terms used to refer to some of these facilities. Additionally, the USPS has disaggregated post office branches from post office stations only since FY2004. Hence, Figure 1 and Table 1 present the retail postal facilities data as compiled into three categories: post offices (POs), post office branches and stations (POBs and POSs), and community post offices and contract postal units (CPOs and CPUs). Figure 1 and Table 1 indicate that the total number of USPS retail postal facilities has declined steadily. In FY1971, the USPS had 42,287 retail facilities; in FY2012 it had 34,784—17.7% fewer. The number of POs has dropped 16.3%, and the number of CPUs and CPOs has declined 45.4%. Meanwhile, the number of POBs and POSs has increased 15.6%. It is unclear how many retail postal facilities the USPS intends to close in the coming years. This uncertainty is the product of shifting USPS plans in recent years. The agency also has not stated how many post offices it needs to serve the public. (1) In May 2009, the USPS announced it planned to shutter up to 3,105 retail facilities. How many of these post office stations and branches ultimately were closed as part of this initiative is unknown. (2) In July 2011, the USPS declared that it might close 3,652 post offices, which would have amounted to approximately 10.2% of its then 35,633 retail facilities. The agency reported that that these included 2,825 post offices, each of which earned less than $27,500 in revenue annually; 384 post office stations and branches, each of which earned FY2010 revenue of less than $600,000; 178 "retail annexes," each of which earned FY2010 revenues of less than $1,000,000; and 265 post offices, stations, and branches that were undergoing discontinuance review already. The USPS claimed that closing all these facilities could save more than $200 million per year. At the time, the USPS said that some of these retail facilities could be closed or replaced by "village post offices." A village post office is a term coined by the USPS to refer to an arrangement substantially similar to a contract postal unit. Staffed by a non-USPS employee and located within a private retail outlet, a village post office would provide the following services: mail collection boxes, post offices boxes, stamp sales, and prepaid Priority Mail flat rate boxes and envelope sales and receipt. As proposed, a village post office would not provide other services, such as passport registration, money orders, and non-uniform parcel shipping. The provision of USPS products and services by private vendors is not unusual. Currently, the USPS has more than 64,000 third-party postal retail locations. The USPS views village post offices and other contractual arrangements as less expensive than operating a post office. However, in December 2011 the USPS announced that it had suspended its post office closures until May 15, 2012 "in response to a request made by multiple U.S. Senators." (3) On May 9, 2012, the USPS announced that it would attempt to preserve small rural post offices by reducing the hours they are kept open and shrinking their cohort of postmasters. Some 13,000 post offices' hours of service would be reviewed and possibly reduced under the agency's "Post Office Structure Plan" (POStPlan). The PRC issued an advisory opinion on this latest initiative, finding it not contrary to law and preferable to the agency's previous proposal for post office closures. The American Postal Workers Union, which represents some of the USPS employees who may be affected by the POStPlan, has criticized it as violating its collective bargaining agreement with the USPS. The APWU and USPS are reportedly arbitrating this matter. The USPS has stated that the POStPlan will be fully implemented by September 2014. The USPS's communications on the POStPlan did not clarify whether it had discontinued the 2009 and 2011 retail closure initiatives. Nor did the agency state which of the postal facilities on the 2009 and 2011 lists have been shuttered or might be shut down. According to the data used to create Figure 1 , the number of retail postal facilities has decreased by 1,281 between FY2008 and FY2012 (31.3%), from 36,065 to 34,784. The USPS was established in 1971 by the Postal Reorganization Act (PRA; P.L. 91-375; 84 Stat. 725). Previously, postal services had been provided by the U.S. Post Office Department (USPOD), a government agency that received annual appropriations from Congress. Members were involved in many aspects of the USPOD's operations, including the selection of managers (e.g., postmasters) and the pricing of postal services. Under this configuration, the Post Office had operational difficulties and developed a reputation for incompetence and corruption. The PRA abolished USPOD and replaced it with the U.S. Postal Service, an "independent establishment of the executive branch" (39 U.S.C. 201). The USPS is a marketized government agency that has far greater freedom to run its operations than the former Post Office Department. It does not rely on appropriations for its operating revenue. Congress assigned the USPS the "general duty" to "maintain an efficient system of collection, sorting, and delivery of the mail nationwide" (39 U.S.C. 403(b)). In order to carry out this obligation, the law gives the USPS the "specific powers" to "provide for the collection, handling, transportation, delivery, forwarding, returning, and holding of mail, and for the disposition of undeliverable mail" (39 U.S.C. 404(a)(1)); and "determine the need for post offices, postal and training facilities and equipment, and ... provide such offices, facilities, and equipment as it determines are needed" (39 U.S.C. 404(a)(13)). While Congress designed the USPS to be a self-supporting entity, the nation's legislature also requires the USPS to serve the public as a whole. This "public service obligation," as it often is termed, is located in the PRA's chapters on "postal policy" (39 U.S.C. 101) and the USPS's "general authority" (39 U.S.C. 403): "The United States Postal Service shall be operated as a basic and fundamental service provided to the people by the Government of the United States, authorized by the Constitution, created by [an] Act of Congress, and supported by the people. The Postal Service shall have as its basic function the obligation to provide postal services to bind the Nation together through the personal, educational, literary, and business correspondence of the people. It shall provide prompt, reliable, and efficient services to patrons in all areas and shall render postal services to all communities" (39 U.S.C. 101(a)); and "The Postal Service shall provide a maximum degree of effective and regular postal services to rural areas, communities, and small towns where post offices are not self-sustaining. No small post office shall be closed solely for operating at a deficit, it being the specific intent of the Congress that effective postal services be insured to residents of both urban and rural communities" (39 U.S.C. 101(b)).