The U.S. Postal Service will cut Saturday mail delivery in August to combat a $15.9 billion loss this past fiscal year, one of several changes instituted by the agency related to its deficits.
Locally, the Kinston mail processing center will shut down this month as part of a consolidation plan to close plants where fewer employees were needed among a declining volume of mail.
The changes on the horizon — all responses to financial challenges — aren’t taking a major toll on Lenoir County residents.
Kinston business owner Kevin Zoltek said the five-day schedule won’t distress him or his investment and advertising company.
“To be honest, it really doesn’t have an effect on me,” he said. “My business is (open) from Monday through Friday. I do, once in a while, come on Saturdays to pick up my mail, but for the most part (it’s) nothing vital for me.”
Zoltek said he scans and emails a lot of his documents. A decline in first class mail volume can be partially attributed to USPS e-commerce services, to which the agency suffered a 37 percent loss, according to Washington Post reports.
A press conference was held Wednesday in Washington, D.C. announcing Saturday mail delivery will end Aug. 5, putting the postal services on its first five-day schedule. There has been Monday through Saturday delivery since 1863.
Packages will still be delivered on Saturdays, as their volume accounts for a 14 percent increase in the last three years. The one-day cut will save USPS an annual $2 billion, according to the press conference.
“If that’s what they need to cut, that’s what they need to do,” said Anna Berry, a Kinston post office customer. “I prefer them to cut Saturday then to not deliver mail at all. One day a week is not going to hurt me.”
Post Office branches will remain open on Saturday for customer purchases, but many in lesser populated communities will cut their business hours.
Cove City, Deep Run and Dover Post Offices have a proposed two-hour cut, and Comfort Post Office will likely go from eight retail hours to only two.
Distribution Center
The Kinston Possessing and Distribution Center, housed at the Kinston Post Office, will move its mail to a Fayetteville plant by the end of this month. It employed about 80 people who had $15,000 incentive, retirement, relocation or new position options, according to North Carolina Post Office spokeswoman Monica Coachman-Robbs.
There were no layoffs because of the closing.
“The Post Office will still maintain the facility as a hub,” she said. “So they’ll need a skeleton crew. … Many (employees) took the option to retire.”
Coachman-Robbs said 50 percent of the national postal service workforce was eligible for retirement last year.
On Jan. 31, two Kinston Post Office employees were honored among nine total retirees from this year. Charles Sowers and Dale Turner together have 76 years of government service. Turner has worked with Kinston’s postal service since 1973, while Sowers, a Vietnam veteran, started his service in 1984.
“We will miss their experience certainly, and their knowledge,” said Kinston Postmaster Al Brantley. “We’ve got plenty of able people left, (but) when someone retires, that knowledge they’ve got in their head is gone.”
Some employees remaining at the processing plant are preparing to transition into a new position.
Germaine Dail, a maintenance support clerk at the processing center, will become a reserved city carrier when the pant closes.
She said opted to stay local because she has family here.
“I wanted to stay around in the area,” she said. “It’s OK, (because) we have a job. A lot of places were not given this option.”
Dail said some of her coworkers relocated to Raleigh, South Carolina and Florida, while she will go from a day-to-night position.
“(It’s) having to go out on the street when I’m used to being inside,” she said.
Brantley, who was once a mail carrier, said people will enjoy the new position.
“Carrying mail is fun,” he said. “You see people, you’re outside more and you don’t constantly have someone over your shoulder. The pay is the same, so they didn’t take a pay cut.”
He said working with the post office is the best job to have in Kinston because of the pay, benefits and job security.
Although no one was laid off during the closing process, the bottom line local savings will be $5 million annually.
“To achieve these savings, they had to consolidate the facilities to shrink the network,” Coachman-Robbs said, noting the postal service network is too large for its decrease in first-class mail.
Jessika Morgan can be reached at 252-559-1078 or at jessika.morgan@kinston.com. Follow her on Twitter @JessikaMorgan.