Nearly 3,700 post offices could shut down starting as early as January, U.S. Post Master General Patrick Donahoe announced Tuesday. The proposal follows record-breaking profit losses and an $8.5 billion deficit for the 2010 fiscal year.
Franklin, AL Post Office closings up for review
Franklin Post Office
Franklin, AL 36444
What’s your opinion on the closings? Check the list to find out the fate of the post offices in Franklin, Alabama and tell the community what you think.
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As technology and the web reshape contemporary lifestyles, it's no surprise newer communications are affecting the mail. Online billing, text messaging, email, and web advertising have each played a part in decreasing mail volume and post office foot traffic in recent years. Most of the offices targeted for closures now have enough activity to fill only a two-hour work day.
The post offices that have been singled out for “low activity” will each be subject to a four-month review. They span all 50 states including rural areas and major cities, though the Postal Service says most fall within a 5 mile vicinity of another location, and many could be supplanted by retail-replacement options in places like grocery stores, pharmacies, and gas stations. Offering limited mail services, such “Village Post Offices” might serve as a boon to local businesses, according to Donahoe. (Read CNN/Money's article)
With the nation in financial crisis and mired in debts, Delaware Senator Tom Carper, the chair of the subcommittee that oversees the Postal Service, called the closings “a difficult but necessary step.”
Second only to Walmart as the country's largest employer and obligated to pay unusually large retirement benefits, the Postal Service has already had to trim down rapidly. Today the staff is at two-thirds what it was in 1999, and since 2008, it has eliminated 110,000 jobs.
Despite financial difficulties, however, some say the sacrifice of thousands of United States Post Offices is too great. Residents of rural communities may especially feel the loss, particularly in areas where the post office doubles as a meeting place, or in places where the next nearest location is far away and difficult to access.
“Maintaining our nation’s rural post offices costs the Postal Services less than 1 percent of its total budget and is not the cause of the financial crisis,” said Maine Senator Susan Collins, who has proposed a bill to reform workers’ compensation and contracting requirements as an alternative means of addressing the budget problem.
The notion that equal and affordable postal service is a universal right is a deeply embedded one. The Postal Service is one of few government agencies explicitly authorized by the U.S. Constitution. Until 1971, the Post Office Department was even a part of the Presidential cabinet. The closings now under review, compounded with a proposal to cut Saturday service, may work to dislodge that notion.
