The U.S. Postal Service, on target to record $14 billion in losses this year, has plans that it believes will bolster its financial standing. However, the contradictions surrounding its money-saving ideas might set the stage for a worse fiscal morass than the one for which it already is headed.

Despite the looming $14 billion loss already identified, the debt-ridden mail service said Wednesday that it was scrapping plans to close thousands of money-losing post offices, keeping them operating, but with reduced hours that will trim some labor costs and shift some workers to part-time status.

But the questionable, contradictory thinking doesn’t stop there. The Postal Service is seeking to team with Valassis Communications, Inc., of Livonia, Mich., one of the largest coupon distributors/processors in the world, to distribute at least 1 million advertising mailers.

Some people might not have a problem with this plan. But there is a risk that the Postal Service might still not avoid bankruptcy.

On the one hand, to survive, the Postal Service faces post office closings or scaled-back hours — or both. On the other hand, the mail service is trying to dive head-first into a plan with Valassis that would seriously challenge the postal agency’s ability to deliver with its current and projected personnel and equipment.

Consider the agency’s foot carriers and the additional weight of Valassis mailings that they would be expected to carry. Would the Postal Service have to assign one or more additional carriers to some routes currently served by one carrier? In many cases, yes.

Would postal vehicles and the vehicles of rural mail carriers have the capacity to handle the additional quantity of mail? Would additional rural carriers and postal agency vehicles be necessary to achieve timely delivery? It’s easy to envision such a need.

The Postal Service’s workday challenges and personnel needs would be multiplied as a result of the Valassis deal — at the time when the postal agency admits the need to cut back.

The challenge would be even more daunting for the Postal Service if the agency ends Saturday delivery or delivery on some other day of the week.

But the shortsightedness of the proposed Valassis contract is most evident in the contract proposal itself.

While the Postal Service is anticipating an additional $107 million in postage over the three-year term of the pact, the net profit is expected to be only about $15 million. That’s a meager $5 million a year additional profit — insignificant when stacked against the current year’s projected loss of $14 billion.

How would that $15 million stack up against the additional personnel and equipment requirements that the contract would entail?

The poposed Valassis deal is not what’s needed to help the Postal Service survive.

In regard to avoiding post office closings, Postmaster General Patrick Donahoe said, “If we can shrink labor costs, we can keep the buildings open.”

In fact, with Valassis’ mail volume, coupled with the subsidized rates the Postal Service has offered the coupon distributor, Donahoe might be on the threshold of sending the agency on a disastrous downward spiral adding many more billions to the agency’s already projected losses.

The agency needs better, less-contradictory thinking than what is revealed in the proposed Valassis deal.