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The Postal Service has dropped plans to close thousands of the nation's rural post offices.
By Chip Somodevilla, Getty ImagesMaster General and U.S. Postal Service CEO Patrick Donahoe announces a new plan to keep the nation's smallest post offices open despite ongoing budget troubles.
By Chip Somodevilla, Getty ImagesMaster General and U.S. Postal Service CEO Patrick Donahoe announces a new plan to keep the nation's smallest post offices open despite ongoing budget troubles.
Under pressure from Congress and local communities, the cash-strapped agency has instead decided to trim operations at 13,000 post offices to between two and six hours per day, Postmaster General Patrick Donahoe says."We have listened to our customers in rural America and we've heard them loud and clear - they want to keep their post offices open," Donahoe says. "Any rural community that wants to retain their post office, we will work with them to do that."The plan gives communities a few other options:•Close their post office and start up door-to-door delivery;•Offer stamp sales and fixed-rate shipping in already-existing small community businesses such as local pharmacies or grocery stores;•Merge the local post office with another nearby post office.Post offices already shuttered will stay closed, but the 400 post offices in the process of closing will remain open.Lawmakers are worried that the plan isn't drastic enough to help pull USPS from its forecast $14.1 billion debt."The truth is that reducing hours in rural post offices will not save significant amounts compared to the Postal Service's overall budget," says Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt.The plan would save an estimated half billion dollars every year by reducing hours and replacing full-time career employees with part-time workers, said USPS Chief Operating Officer Megan Brennan.USPS also will offer buyout packages of up to $20,000 to 13,000 workers eligible for retirement, Brennan says."Stopgap, piecemeal measures like the proposal offered today only address a small part of the problem and will not keep the Postal Service from an imminent collapse," says Sen.Tom Carper, D-Del."The Postal Service needs a comprehensive solution, not more tinkering around the edges."Before taking action on the plan, which would take two years to finish, the Postal Service has to get regulatory approval and community input.The proposal has "countless" problems, many of which will be brought up during the approval process, says Steve Hutkins, a literature professor at New York University, who runs the website Savethepostoffice.com."Reducing post office hours would be devastating - how can a business run only being open two hours a day?" Hutkins says. "The alternative options for the 13,000 post offices are not at all adequate, it's just a slow death rather than a quick one."USPS will announce more changes next week about the closings of mail processing centers and service standards such as overnight delivery, says USPS spokeswoman Susan McGowan."I remain troubled that processing facilities could still be closed beginning just next week, which makes no sense at all given the progress on postal reform legislation," says Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine.For more information about reprints & permissions, visit our FAQ's. To report corrections and clarifications, contact Standards Editor Brent Jones. For publication consideration in the newspaper, send comments to letters@usatoday.com. Include name, phone number, city and state for verification. To view our corrections, go to corrections.usatoday.com.
