HELENA, Mont. - The top US Postal Service official on Thursday took his case for rural post office closures straight to the people it will hurt most, telling Montanans that up to 3,600 small post offices around the country need to be shuttered as part of cost-cutting moves.
Rural residents who traveled to Helena to meet Postmaster General Patrick Donahoe answered right back, telling him they depend on their post offices.
One woman from the southwestern Montana town of Basin said she has no Internet access and relies on the mail. But like many other rural residents, she does not receive mail delivery.
DeDe Rhodes said if her post office closes, the next one is more than 10 miles away, making her regular trip to pick up mail much more costly.
“I need you to really consider what we are saying. People need their rural post offices,’’ Rhodes told Donahoe. “Let’s look at the urban areas, maybe they don’t need as many post offices because they get their mail delivered right to their door, or at least to the curb.’’
The agency needs to reorganize in part because of a 60 percent decline in the number of people paying bills through the mail and the cost of paying into employee retirement benefits, Donahoe told the gathering in Helena, which is facing the loss of its mail processing center.
Last year, postal losses totaled $5.1 billion, and those losses are projected to grow.
“We are in a heck of a financial situation. That is why it is so important we move ahead with some of the changes we need to make,’’ Donahoe said. “You have to do something. You can’t sit back and wait.’’
Donahoe’s Montana visit comes as the Senate prepares as early as next week to take up legislation that would slow, if not stop, the Postal Service’s plans to close roughly half of the nation’s 460 mail processing centers beginning this year. The move would slow mail delivery and, for the first time in 40 years, eliminate the chance for stamped letters to arrive the next day.
At the request of Congress, the mail agency previously agreed not to close any facilities before May 15. Donahoe said the agency has to weigh competing requests to preserve certain aspects of its services, like six-day delivery, as it considers a whole slate of reductions that include the closures.
In a report released Thursday, federal auditors stressed that “dramatic changes’’ were needed to stem the Postal Service’s mounting debt and that the agency’s proposal to close mail processing centers, estimated to save roughly $3 billion a year, was an important part of accomplishing that goal.
The report by the Government Accountability Office also noted that the proposal to close mail centers faced tough obstacles due to opposition from local communities to the job losses and cutbacks in service. Labor agreements also make layoffs and forced transfers difficult.
The report expressed support for parts of a House postal bill that would set up a new commission to make major decisions on postal cuts, including reducing mail delivery to five days a week.