Closing down one of the post offices in South Dakota, specifically the Reva, South Dakota post office, would save the US Postal Service $8,000 per year. Peanuts. This tells me that the US Postal Service is a) penny-wise, pound-foolish; and, b) their financial problems have nothing to do with serving rural communities.
I used to think it was too expensive for the US Postal Service to serve rural communities but when I see that shutting down the Reva, North Dakota, post office would save all of $8,000 per year, one has to wonder.
The U.S. Postal Service says it will save around $8,000 per year over the next decade by closing the post office in Reva, a rural Harding County community.
Residents of Reva, which has four residents in the unincorporated town and around 100 people living in the surrounding ranchland, fiercely oppose the proposal, saying it jeopardizes their community’s future.
But USPS says it will save almost $80,000 over the next decade if it closes the Reva post office and assigns services there to Lemmon, 74 miles away.As noted in my earlier note on this subject, the financial problems have to do with financial mismanagement and not due to serving rural communities. Even the New York Times got that right:
According to the New York Times: decades of contractual promises made to unionized workers, including no-layoff clauses, are increasing the post office’s costs. Labor represents 80 percent of the agency’s expenses, compared with 53 percent at United Parcel Service and 32 percent at FedEx, its two biggest private competitors. Postal workers also receive more generous health benefits than most other federal employees.After posting that yesterday, I received some "hate mail," but "anonymous" was unable to show where the New York Times was wrong.
My hunch is that folks can come up with any number of ways for the US Postal Service to keep the Reva post office open without detriment to the overall financial condition for the US Postal Service.
I know a rancher near Reva. Sad to see but the post office as we know will have to go the way of the pony express.
ReplyDeleteI used to buy 100 stamp rolls on a regular basis. Now I think we buy one a year around Christmas. With e-mail, texting, and web based communications (check out submittalexchange.com)a service I use every day at work. I hardly ever use the postal service.
Less post offices = less hate mail
ReplyDeleteIs this just the perfect example of the efficiency of government and their agents!
Mail should be delivered every odd day and on the even days, they should balance their their books...
It could even explain today's goo decline...
Yes, the "post office we know has to go the way of the pony express." I agree.
ReplyDeleteBut there are so many ways to manage it.
I assume that folks in Reva would appreciate once / week service of mailing/receiving packages. But documents, letters, etc., can all go by internet. There is no reason in this age to be mailing documents (although I assume there are exceptions).
The USPS could contract with a senior high school with a driver's license to move packages back and forth between Lemmon, SD, and Reva, SD, twice a week. Three-hour round trip after school, twice a week for $30/hour plus expenses.
He would need to be bonded, and sign for items each way with the customer/USPS -- this is not rocket science.
Thank you for taking time to comment.
If the US Post Office is loosing money they should raise the price of a postage stamp to at least five cent or more or a break even price and stop this
ReplyDeletepenny pinching one to two pennies every two years.
My hunch is that if they raised the price to what they actually need, folks would be shocked.
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