RIO GRANDE VALLEY -- It is an issue that has been going on for quite some time with the economy not getting any better, neither is the situation with our Nation’s post offices.
General Postmaster, John Porter said, "As the postal service reaches the final quarter of the fiscal year it is clear that weakness in the overall economy is continuing to have a profound negative effect on our finances."
Porter said, by the end of this fiscal year, which is September 30th, he expects the postal service to be 7-billion dollars in debt.
So what does that mean for the rest of the nation?
One, a possible change in the number of day’s mail is delivered.
“Our ultimate success also depends on a structural change. The biggest element being our ability to move from six-day delivery to five-day delivery,” said Porter.
Other ways they’re looking at cutting costs…reducing work hours by 88-million hours.
“No one element by itself will be sufficient to meet our short term and long term financial challenges," said Porter.
Another contributing factor to this mounting debt is the decline in mail volume.
In 2009 the number of mail sent out fell by 20-billion pieces from last year.
The third quarter mail volume totaled 41.6 billion…that’s down 7-billion from last year.
This is the largest consecutive drop since 1971.
Despite these declining numbers, here in the Valley, people are still lining up to send and receive mail.
We’re told there are studies being done…but there are no plans to close any of the Valley locations.
"We are doing studies in the Valley to see whether or not we are going to consolidate some post offices,” said Sam Bolen, spokesman for USPS in the Valley. “No decisions have been made at this time."
But does add….
"We're going to do what we can to start conserving money, but at the same time not compromise the services we offer our customers," said Bolen.
About 1-trillion dollars move through the mail each year and they employ about 8-million Americans.
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