After 200 years of daily deliveries, the
United States Postal Service has fallen on tough times.
The full impact of the organization’s
difficulties has yet to reach the Lower Valley, but slower delivery times are
looming as further cuts are made.
United States Postal Service profits have been
declining for more than a decade, mostly due to internet communications taking
the place of First-Class Mail, once the main source of postal income.
Unique in the world of business and
government, the United State Postal Service is funded entirely by its own
profits and not through taxes, yet is required to serve all customers in the
country, regardless of location.
In addition, the Postal Service is overseen by
the U.S. Congress, which in 2006 required the organization to pre-fund all its
retirement obligations within 10 years. For the past three years the Postal
Service has been unable to meet the $5.5 billion annual payments to the
retirement fund, defaulting instead.
Due to the organization’s shaky financial
situation, the Postmaster General has made cuts to service, starting with the
2012 closing of 150 out of nearly 500 mail processing plants across the
country.
Though there were talks of closing the mail
processing center in Yakima, it avoided that fate. According to Sunnyside
Postmaster Isidro Rodriguez, there are no plans to do so now following the
recent closure of the Pasco center.
Rodriguez says mail from Grandview and
Sunnyside and points west are all processed in Yakima, while Prosser and points
east are now served by the Spokane center.
Rodriguez, who was hired as interim postmaster
last June before being named to the post on a permanent basis last fall, says
the Sunnyside Post Office is feeling impacts of other cutbacks.
With the Outlook Post Office not having a
postmaster, a postal worker from Sunnyside has been filling in at that post.
Besides an Outlook route, Sunnyside also has
four other rural routes.
“We have a skeleton crew right now,” Rodriguez
says. “We’re trying to manage our hours.”
Because of stretching to help cover Outlook,
the Sunnyside Post Office is looking to hire two part-time workers – one for
mail distribution and to be a carrier.
Grandview Postmaster Steve Barrientes said he
doesn’t anticipate any layoffs with the changes being made this year.
“There is a lot of shuffling underway to
prevent layoffs in the region,” he said.
Postal service in Grandview is not being
impacted by the closures of processing facilities, but Prosser, Barrientes
said, has been impacted by the closure of the Pasco processing plant.
For Grandview postal service patrons,
Barrientes says there is nothing to worry about. Regarding slower first-class
and periodical mailings, Barrientes said, “Grandview customers will continue to
receive their mail as they have been.”
But changes are coming. The organization is
currently bleeding money, a situation that would not be fixed even if the
retirement pre-funding requirements were removed. As a result of cuts to staff,
service has slowed down on a lot of rural routes, and the Postal Service itself
has relaxed the standards for First-Class Mail.
According to the United States Postal Service,
standards were changed this month, affecting roughly 14 billion pieces of the
total volume of mail, about 9 percent, and up to 16 percent of First-Class
Mail. The average delivery time for mail went from 1.8 days to 2.1 days, which
means an extra day for customers on rural routes or who do not live near a
processing plant.
Changes in rural delivery are a major concern
for U.S. Postal Service customers like Brenda Tatum-Carlson of Granger, who
relies on the daily delivery at her home.
“We order our prescriptions on-line,” said
Tatum-Carlson, “but depend on the post office to get items to our house.”
If, in the future, the U.S. Postal Service was
to decide to close either the Granger or Zillah offices, due to budget
constraints, Tatum-Carlson said she would be forced to drive 20-miles to pick
up her mail and medications in Toppenish. “It would be a really bad situation
for me,” she added.
Fewer days of mail delivery could prove a real
challenge for area senior citizens, according to Gloria Alexander, president of
the Sunnyside Senior Citizen Group.
Her concern is for those senior citizens who
are too afraid to use computers for on-line banking and bill paying.
“Many of us don’t ‘do’ computers. So not
getting regular delivery of our mail would prove to be a real hardship,” said
Alexander.
A reduction in daily and Saturday home
delivery would cause problems for other seniors with disabilities and who
actually depend on the mailman for daily contact. For example, Cherry Fairbanks
Morse said her mailman often delivers packages right to the door.
“He knows I have a disability and my husband
is ill,” she explained. “Sometimes if he doesn’t see any movement at our house,
he rings the doorbell just to check on us,” Fairbanks Morse said.
“I don’t think the U.S. Postal Service cares
about things like that, but I would really miss my daily service if it were
curtailed.”
Fairbanks Morse said having to travel downtown
to pick up her mail would be an extreme hardship. “I wouldn’t be able to go
every day,” she added.
Daily rural mail delivery of items such as the
local daily newspaper would also be a hardship for rural mail customers,
according to Yolanda Bickett of Sunnyside.
“My neighbor gets the paper in the mail a day
late already,” Bickett said. “She gets all her items through the mail,
including her meds. It would be an issue for her if rural delivery was cut. And
for my family as well, because she shares the newspaper with us.”
The Postal Service has been discussing the
possibility of closing more processing plants and reducing its staff even
further to save costs. In addition, other options, such as cutting Saturday
service, are on the table.
In the meantime, the Postal Service is looking
at a potential rate increase this year, for almost every service except
First-Class letters. Those will remain at 49 cents even if the rate increase
goes through.
Source : http://www.dailysunnews.com
