Paducah’s processing center and eights others in Kentucky could be shut down and hundreds of local jobs lost as the U.S. Postal Service looks for ways to cut costs and restore its fiscal health. Out-of-town mail from Marion, Crayne, Dycusburg, Salem and other post offices in Livingston County are initially taken to the Paducah center for sorting.
Paducah is among 250 centers nationwide being studied over the next three to four months as the Postal Service looks for ways to save money. Evansville, which is not on the list of those being studied for closing, is the nearest processing center to Marion.
Faced with a massive nationwide infrastructure that is no longer financially sustainable, the U.S. Postal Service has proposed sweeping changes designed to save the organization up to $3 billion a year by cutting its network of processing facilities by over half and adjusting service standards. Other cost-cutting proposals are reducing mail processing equipment by as much as 50 percent, dramatically decreasing the nationwide transportation network, adjusting the workforce size by as many as 35,000 positions, and revising service standards for First-Class Mail.
Mail volume has declined by more than 43 billion pieces in the past 5 years and is continuing to decline. First-Class Mail has dropped 25 percent and single piece First-Class Mail — letters bearing postage stamps — has declined 36 percent in the same timeframe, and nearly 50 percent in the past ten years. The decline has created substantial excess capacity within the postal processing network.
We are forced to face a new reality today,” said Postmaster General Patrick Donahoe. “First-Class Mail supports the organization and drives network requirements. With the dramatic decline in mail volume and the resulting excess capacity, maintaining a vast national infrastructure is no longer realistic. Since 2006, we have closed 186 facilities, removed more than 1,500 pieces of mail processing equipment, decreased employee complement by more than 110,000 through attrition and reduced costs by $12 billion.”
