Federal brief
Periodic Reporting
The Postal Service asks regulators for a new reporting category, “Side-Along Services,” after letter carriers helped the Census Bureau knock on doors in a 2026 test. Comments due October 28, 2026. FR 2026-20865.
Letter carriers know their routes, right down to which addresses are vacant. Under an agreement the Postal Service entered in December 2025, the Census Bureau put that knowledge to work — and now the Postal Service wants a new way to account for it.
According to a Postal Service petition filed October 5, 2026, city and rural carriers trained by Census took part in “enumeration support” for the 2026 Census Test Run. They reviewed Census-provided addresses on their routes that had not answered the form, reported whether homes were vacant, explained the survey to residents, and gave the survey in person when needed. Carriers logged the time on their Mobile Delivery Devices.
Why it is in front of the Postal Regulatory Commission: under the Postal Service Reform Act of 2022, the Postal Service must report costs and revenue for agreements to provide services to other government agencies, and programs for federal agencies must cover at least 100 percent of attributable costs. The Commission’s approved categories today are Retail Services; Fulfillment; Addressing and Geospatial Technology Services; Short-Term Rental/Conference and Training Center Services; Lease Agreements; and Contracting Services. The Postal Service says the Census work fits none of them.
The proposal: a new “Side-Along Services” category, with costs figured by multiplying carriers’ recorded hours by each craft’s productive hourly wage rate and a “piggyback” factor. The Postal Service says the pilot does not guarantee future agreements like this, and that approval by late November would let it report final numbers in its FY 2026 Annual Compliance Report.
Comments are due October 28, 2026, through the Commission’s Filing Online system at www.prc.gov, in Docket No. RM2027-2 (Order No. 9760). Christopher Mohr is the Public Representative for the general public. Questions go to General Counsel David A. Trissell at 202-789-6820.
Federal Register filing: https://www.federalregister.gov/documents/2026/10/13/2026-20865/periodic-reporting
This is a Notice Nearby publisher-desk Federal brief — a short in-house summary of a public federal filing. It is not official agency minutes, not a newspaper story, and not Legal Publication. It does not satisfy a statutory notice requirement.
Source: the official public federal record 2026-20865 · Federal Register · 2026-20865 · 2026-20865.
This is a Notice Nearby publisher-desk Federal brief — a short in-house summary of a public federal filing. It is not official agency minutes, not a newspaper story, and not Legal Publication. It does not satisfy a statutory notice requirement.