With closure of the Fort Scott mail processing center Aug. 19 it’s unlikely Iolans have noticed any difference in local mail service.
“There won’t be any change for 99 percent” of U.S. Postal Service patrons, Richard Watkins, corporate communications officer for the USPS, told the Register.
The switch in mail processing mainly affects first class mail, which makes up the bulk of what is handled at the processing center in Kansas City, Mo. In a few instances, mail that previously took two days to deliver regionally will be on a next-day schedule, while the reverse also will be true.
“Most people won’t see any difference,” Watkins said, which means a letter mailed for delivery within Iola will arrive the next day.
“The Kansas City, Mo. Processing and Distribution Center has the capacity to handle the additional workload and we can realize significant savings by shifting operations there,” by closing the Fort Scott center, Mid-America District Manager Mark Martinez said in a news release.
Letters, cards and packages mailed at the Iola post office are carried to Kansas City by truck shortly after 4:30 each weekday afternoon when final collections from deposit boxes are made. Mail brought here for local distribution arrives in three trucks each morning, packages and non-first class mail at 5:30 and 6 o’clock and first class mail, with most of it sorted and ready for carriers to take on their routes, at 8 o’clock. Those schedules have not changed.
Watkins said the delivery schedules for packages, priority mail and newspaper were unaffected by the change.
The Kansas City, Mo. center was built about 10 years ago and “is state of the art,” he said. “Four years ago the distribution center in Kansas City, Kan. was closed and its mail was moved there. That alone saved the Postal Service $9 million a year.”
The Fort Scott center’s closing also was financially motivated, however savings didn’t come from any employees being laid off.
“The Postal Service doesn’t lay off people,” said Todd McDermed, a supervisor at the Fort Scott post office.
One employee who worked in the distribution center transferred to the post office in Pittsburg, where he lives and others remained at the Fort Scott office. McDermed also said when the distribution center was operating, some part-time employees were brought in “to give them more hours.”
Martinez reported that the USPS had had a 20 percent decline in volume since 2007.
“And,” Watkins said, “single-piece mail — personal letters and cards — has decreased 50 percent in the last 10 years.
“We just don’t have as much workload today,” he said, which has permitted cost-saving consolidations already done — the Independence distribution center also has been closed in favor of one in Wichita — and portends others, including proposed closings of many small post offices.
IN KANSAS 156 small post offices are being considered for closure, including in the Iola neighborhood those at Piqua and Kincaid. Neosho Falls’ has closed.
Daily deliveries to most small towns, such as Neosho Falls and Piqua, are done by rural carriers driving from nearby larger post offices, Iola in Piqua’s case. Local business is restricted to a handful of postal boxes, sale of stamps and intake of mail.
It was noted during a public hearing for the Piqua post office in August that most functions of permanent post offices could be done by rural carriers, who have with them each day stamps to sell. Things requiring more attention, such as sale of money orders, may be done by rural carriers — postal officials like to call them post offices on wheels — on an overnight schedule.
Also, the Postal Service has introduced village post offices, located in retail businesses and offering basic services, such as sale of stamps, as an adjunct to what the business does daily. That would be a possibility in Piqua, residents there were told at the August hearing.
