Post office releases list of nearly 3,700 closings

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Post office releases list of nearly 3,700 closings

Your little post office could be slated to close as the U.S. Postal Service tries to find ways to cut red ink. Postmaster General Patrick Donahoe released a long-awaited “post office study” of nearly 3,700 potential closings in all 50 states and Washington, D.C. “The Postal Service of the future will be smaller, leaner and more competitive and it will continue to drive commerce, serve communities and deliver value,” Donahoe said. Donahoe said that this and other moves, such as a proposal under consideration to reduce service to five days a week, are necessary to close a $20 billion gap in revenue by 2015. The closings could cost the jobs of about 3,000 postmasters, 500 supervisors and another 500 to 1,000 clerks, said Dean Granholm, vice president of delivery and post office operations. The Postal Service has about 574,000 employees.

But, on the post office spins it a little different – “Postal Service Takes Next Step in Optimizing Retail Network”….

As more customers choose to conduct their postal business online, on their smart phones and at their favorite shopping destinations, the need for the U.S. Postal Service to maintain its nearly 32,000 retail offices — the largest retail network in the country — diminishes. To that end, the U.S. Postal Service announced today that it will be taking the next step in right-sizing its expansive retail network by conducting studies of approximately 3,700 retail offices to determine customer needs. As part of this effort, the Postal Service also introduced a retail-replacement option for affected communities around the nation.


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7 Comments

  1. I’ve read about this, and everyone says they released a list, but I have yet to find said list anywhere. Anyone know of where it is?

  2. @eric – yah, we know! we looked all over the usps.com

  3. Eric, I found it via an NPR news article, the CNN one linked in the post didn’t bother to link to the list.

    http://about.usps.com/news/electronic-press-kits/expandedaccess/statelist.htm

  4. Eric: I am not sure how up-to-date and/or accurate the list is, but this appears to be the list of closures being considered: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/politics/documents/post-offices.html

  5. The USPS is “losing” money because of an onerous obligation to pre-fund future retiree health benefits, at 5.5 billion a year, from 2007 through 2016. No other organization, public or private, has this obligation. http://blogs.govexec.com/fedblog/2011/02/usps_as_victim.php

    Also look at this document: http://www.apwu.org/dept/legis/leg-prioritiesbrochure_march2011.pdf

    And this page:http://savethepostoffice.com/help-wanted-math-teacher-postal-service

    “The ten thousand smallest post offices represent less than one percent of the USPS budget of nearly $70 billion a year.”

    The USPS is doing fine, it delivers mail over a larger geographical area at a lower cost than any other postal service, and needs to be relieved of the ridiculous financial burden of pre-funding future retirees health benefits.

  6. Thanks everyone for your help! It seems to have been a very buried (too bad it couldn’t have been a “very berry”) list.

  7. I had no idea that the USPS had post offices in the Distric (sic) of Columbia. <sigh>

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