Everyone agrees the Postal Service is in serious financial trouble, but there's very little agreement on how to go about saving it.

Although the Senate last month approved a wide-ranging postal overhaul measure (S. 1789), it would make USPS wait for two years before eliminating Saturday mail delivery - one of the key actions the Postal Service says it must take to help cut its costs by $22 billion annually by 2015. As a result of this and other restrictions, USPS following the vote said the measure "falls far short" of what is needed to restore the Postal Service's prospects.

House Oversight and Government Reform Chairman Darrell Issa (R-Calif.) also criticized the Senate bill. But while a House bill introduced by Issa, the Postal Reform Act (H.R. 2309), would allow the Postal Service to move to five-day delivery, USPS officials oppose provisions in that legislation that would create a new Commission on Postal Reorganization with oversight authority if the Postal Service defaults on federal payments.

The Postal Service addressed one of the concerns expressed by many senators May 9, when top officials announced that USPS was suspending its program of reviewing approximately 3,700 primarily rural post offices for possible closure or consolidation. Instead, the Postal Service says it will review approximately 13,000 rural post offices with an eye toward reducing the offices' hours of operation and labor costs while keeping most of the post offices open.

The House and Senate will have to agree on at least a short-term solution to the Postal Service's woes if USPS, which is losing an estimated $25 million each day, is to avoid defaulting later this year on required federal payments.

In other public sector news:

• The Federal Retirement Thrift Investment Board issued final regulations establishing a Roth option for participants in the Federal Employee Retirement System's Thrift Savings Plan.

• Arizona lawmakers approved legislation supported by the governor to make sweeping changes to the personnel system for state employees, including making new hires "at-will" workers.

• Washington's governor signed a measure reducing early retirement benefits for public employees.

• Maryland became the first state to restrict public and private sector employers' ability to demand that employees and job candidates disclose user names, passwords, or other means for accessing electronic communications devices.