Ths U.S. Postal Service is reviewing 252 of its 487 mail-processing centers for possible consolidation and closure, including one Athens location.
The Athens Post Office, 5 Stimson Ave., is one of the centers up for review. David Van Allen, spokesman for the U.S. Postal Service for Ohio, said the Athens Post Office processing center is included in the study because of its redundancy with other locations in Athens.
“There are some offices all over the nation that are two blocks away from each other,” Van Allen said. “We just can't absorb that any longer in this economic climate.”
Van Allen added the final decision on consolidation and closure will not be decided until spring or later.
“Until a decision is made, everything will be running exactly as it is now,” Van Allen said.
Along with the mail-processing center reviews, extended shipping times are also being considered.
Shipping time service standards will be changed from a 1-3 day shipping window to a 2-3 day window.
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The proposed changes to service standards will allow for significant consolidation of the postal network in terms of facilities, processing equipment, vehicles and employee workforce and will generate projected net annual savings of approximately $2.1 billion,” said David Williams, vice president of network operations.
In light of its $5.1 billion deficit at the end of the last fiscal year and a 22 percent loss in revenue in the last five years, the postal service has decided to move forward with its proposed change to service standards, particularly with regard to shipping time.
In mid-September, USPS announced some of the potential measures needed to be taken to ensure USPS’s survival, known as the USPS’s nation optimization initiative. According to a news release, it must reduce its costs by $20 billion by 2015 to return to profitability.
