USPS plant consolidation will lengthen delivery times, eliminate most overnight First-Class mail

"The U.S. Postal Service should evaluate the impact of slower service to newspaper subscribers before proceeding with 2015 closings of mail processing plants," John Edgecombe Jr., publisher of The Nebraska Signal and newly elected president of the National Newspaper Association said in a news release.

Edgecombe said: “As I look at the list of plants on the closing list and see cities like Salina, Kan.; Grand Island, Neb.; Eureka, Calif., and Elko, Nev., I worry that small-town America is gradually losing reliable mail service. Affordable, dependable service links us to our subscribers. More importantly, it is the bedrock of local small-town economies. It is essential that USPS understand and grapple with these impacts before it makes a decision to close any mail sorting plant.”

USPS "plans to consolidate more than 80 mail-processing centers next year, but communities are almost entirely in the dark about how the changes will impact service in their areas, federal auditors said Wednesday," Josh Hicks reports for The Washington Post. The USPS inspector said in a report that "the agency did not complete impact studies for any of the 95 facilities that are scheduled to absorb the operations of other centers starting in January."

"The review also found that the agency has not informed stakeholders about the expected service changes, despite a 2006 law that requires public input before they take effect," Hicks writes. "The changes will increase delivery times and eliminate overnight delivery for 'a large portion of First-Class Mail and periodicals,' the report said."

NNA Postal Committee Chair Max Heath said in the news release: “USPS rests its service studies upon electronic scanning equipment on its automated mail sorters. But many newspapers are not sorted on these machines. So our mail drops out of the visibility measurements that USPS depends upon to report its success in reaching delivery times. Certainly we are concerned whether a plant closing creates a slower standard. We are equally concerned that if newspapers are not delivered on time with today’s delivery standards, USPS has no systematic way of detecting it.”