U.S. Postal Service looks to close up to 3,200 post offices,retail sales outlets

MINNEAPOLIS, Min - The growth of the internet with increasing e-mail correspondence, paying bills on-line and the downturn in the economy have all contributed to decreasing volume and falling revenues for the United States Postal Service; at the present time, the postal service is evaluating 3,200 post offices, branches and retail outlets for possible closure.

"The recent news piece was somewhat misleading, we're not looking at rural post officesbut more at urban areas where there might be some overlap, where we might consolidate post offices to become more efficient," said Pete Nowacki, USPS communications specialist in Minneapolis, "we really need to look at ways we can become more efficient, mail volume was down nine billion pieces last year from a total just under 200 billion and this year we could be down another 20 billion pieces and that helps to create a severe financial crisis for the postal service."

Post officeson or near Pine Ridge and Rosebud report overall less incoming volume, slightly less revenue and an outgoing volume that so far has been fairly stable from year to year.

"People across the country are using email more often, are paying their bills online and with this economic downturn, we are seeing a lot less advertising in the mail and less volume from traditional high mailers like financial service companies, banks, insurance agencies and those businesses dealing with housing and credit," said Nowacki, "we have consolidated routes in the cities, we have cut management by 15 per cent and we have proposed cutting back to five day deliveries that would save the postal service $3.5 billion - we would need an act of Congress to stop Saturday deliveries and at the present time there are no bills in Congress proposing that particular cutback. There is some irony here though, Saturday deliveries are a plus, a good selling point for us to be able to deliver packages on Saturday when people are home but in a recent Gallup Poll though, 66 per cent were in favor of going to five day deliveries if it would keep mail rates down with 34 per cent voting for keeping six day deliveries."

The postal service just recently implemented a rate increase-up to $.44 for a first class letter; they are limited to the rise and fall of the consumer price index.

For a number of years the post officesold a variety of merchandise including cups and t-shirts; after complaints from retailers across the country, the post office has limited their merchandise to stamp related ancillary products and to streamlining package delivery through several different sizes of flat rate boxes, according to Nowacki.