A misguided USPS consolidation proposal
By U.S. Sen. Olympia J. Snowe
(R-Maine)
During a public hearing in Brewer on January 11th, I had the opportunity to express my opposition to the U.S. Postal Service’s (USPS) proposal to consolidate mail processing at the Eastern Maine Processing and Distribution Facility in Hampden into the Southern Maine Processing and Distribution Center in Scarborough, with a net decrease of 42 positions.
This plan has profound implications for timely and reliable mail service in northern, western and eastern Maine, a geographically vast and rural area of our state. It is therefore vital that the Postal Service candidly answer questions and listen to those who would be most harmed by this flawed proposal.
On December 20th, I visited the Hampden facility to meet with the workers and Postal Service managers. I truly appreciated that opportunity and I recognize the Postal Service faces serious financial challenges, having lost approximately $25 billion between 2007 and 2011. At the same time, I am not persuaded that this proposal will achieve the $7.6 million in savings the Postal Service claims, while it would disproportionately slow down mail delivery to rural areas of Maine.
If implemented, nearly two thirds of the land area of the state would be affected – an area encompassing hundreds of cities, towns, and communities, and nearly half of Maine’s entire population. For example, a First-Class letter currently mailed from Caribou to Fort Kent is sent to Hampden, and then returned to Fort Kent for delivery. That’s a round-trip of 371 miles that normally takes one business day. However, under the proposed consolidation plan, that same letter would travel 629 miles round trip to Scarborough. Just to put this in perspective, those additional 258 miles are almost the equivalent of traveling from York, Maine, to New York City!
Those extra miles mean mail that now takes one day for delivery could take up to three days – triple the current time, and perhaps even longer given the treacherous travel conditions often experienced during Maine’s long winters. The fact is, the resulting delay in mail service would harm seniors who may not be communicating by emails and who instead rely on expeditious delivery of medications through the mail, families whose quality of mail service shouldn’t be lessened based simply on where they live in the state – and Maine businesses, 97 percent of which are “small businesses,” that are already struggling just to survive in a poor economy.
How exactly are these future scenarios helpful to a Postal Service that is working mightily to remain competitive? We are already hearing from businesses that are considering alternatives to the Postal Service, as a result of this proposal. So when the Postal Service claims $7.6 million in savings, has it factored into that figure how much business could be lost to non-governmental carriers in the future due to uncertainty about the timeliness of Postal Service delivery?
Furthermore, how can anyone substantively comment on the Postal Service’s plan when regrettably it has failed to provide substantive details with respect to a plan it describes as “subject to change,” or the methodology used in arriving at its claimed savings. During my December 20th visit, I urged the Postal Service to release detailed and comprehensive information well in advance of this public meeting. Yet, as recently as Monday, January 9th, the Postal Service released nothing more than another newly-updated, one-page summary listing only five general areas of estimated cost savings – maintenance savings, mail processing employee savings, management savings, transportation savings, and “other” personnel savings.
Moreover, when I submitted questions to the Postal Service seeking to obtain more detailed information about these five broad categories, the responses I received provided no additional clarity. For example, when I requested more specific information on the proposed consolidation overall I was told that “it is in preliminary stages and still under review.” When I requested more precise details on how the Postal Service claimed nearly $4 million in maintenance savings, I was informed that “the only information made available at this time is the “projected savings by category,” as outlined in the sparse one-page summary. I also asked for a breakdown on how the $2.9 million “annual mail processing employee savings” was derived, and was told that “it is important to note that…information is preliminary and the employee impact is based on the current estimate of workload that would be the post (consolidation) workload.”
After I questioned how the Postal Service could claim an “annual management savings” of $797,000 from the elimination of just two management positions in its December 22, 2011 one-page summary, on January 9th it revised that figure downward to $177,000! Which begs the question, what happened to the other $620,000 in estimated savings, and if this one-page document is the foundation for this consolidation plan, exactly how accurate are its other estimated savings?
So these and many other questions remain. For example, a Postal Service Manager confirmed to me that, in fact, Scarborough will be hiring 120 new workers. How can the Postal Service claim that consolidating Hampden’s processing function saves $7.6 million, while promising to hire 120 new workers in Scarborough? Furthermore, what does the Postal Service plan on doing with all of its mail processing equipment in Hampden, which includes a brand new flat sorting machine installed in 2011, and has this been factored into the $3.9 million in annual maintenance savings asserted by Postal Service? And has the Postal Service taken into account the efficiency and annual performance ratings of the Hampden facility in its calculations?
This proposal is one of no small consequence to the economy of our state. Given the inadequate explanation and information that have been provided thus far, I remain strongly opposed to the proposed consolidation, and, further, request that the Postal Service reconsider the damaging impact such action could have on mail delivery throughout Maine.
