The United States Postal System recently announced the consolidation of mail processing centers in several locations in the state, including Northern Indiana.
“These included moving the mail processing operations from South Bend to Fort Wayne, also moving the operations in Gary to the South Suburban facility in Illinois,” said Mary Dando, spokesperson for the United States Postal System in the Greater Indiana District.
Dando was asked when this will take effect.
“On request from some members of the Senate, and this was in December, the Postal Service agreed to impose a moratorium on closing, or consolidating, post offices and mailing processing facilities, such as the ones in South Bend and in Gary. The moratorium will exist until after May 15th of this year.”
An effective date is not specific but a date may be determined any time before or after May 15th. Dando explains why the moratorium is necessary.
“The moratorium is to give Congress and the administration opportunities to enact an alternative plan. In the meantime, this is what we must do in order to remain viable – to keep the Postal Service viable.”
No changes will be made concerning any retail post offices closing in the area or pricing at this time, but Dando says there will be a change in service standards.
“We requested a change in our service standards. At the moment, the service standard for First Class Mail, which is the letters and cards with stamps, is one to three days. We are proposing to change from the overnight to second-day, so that will be two to three days. The other part of our mail that will be affected would be periodicals. That was one to nine days and if we change our service standards, that will be two to nine days.”
These changes are being made due to the loss of funding over the past six years.
“The highest amount of mail that we’ve had was in 2006 and then we have seen a decline. In fact, there has been a decline of 25 percent in our First Class Mail volume. In our last quarter, the Postal Service lost $3.3 billion and we’re delivering to more than 150 million addresses a day.”
They might be struggling financially, but Mary Dando wants to reassure us that the United States Postal Service is not going away.
