> ... net present value of the future payments required and attributable to the service of Postal Service employees during the most recently ended fiscal year

> ... net present value of the future payments required and attributable to the service of Postal Service employees during the most recently ended fiscal year This means you calculate the total amount of added expected additional pension payments earned over the last year of work. So, if last year you could have retired with a pension estimated to pay out $100k, and this year your pension would be estimated to pay out $120k due to the additional year of service, then that number would be $20k. Since that $20k is not paid out all at once, but over a period of time in the future, you calculate the net present value which reduces the amount based on a “discount” rate which is the expected rate of return on your cash. So, $20k paid out over 10 years starting 10 years from now is discounted to, e.g. $14k, which is how much money you need invested today to fully fund that liability in the future. To sum it up, in that hypothetical example, the USPS is supposed to be banking that additional $14k to find the future liability. It’s actually exactly what anyone running a pension program absolutely should be doing.