E-mail and e-commerce have slowly sliced into the postal service's business over the years, but the lighter loads in mail carriers' pouches lately are related more to the economy.
"I've been here for 32 years, and I've never seen anything like it," said Richard Watkins, a U.S. Postal Service spokesman for the Western Region, based in Kansas City, Mo. "There has been a steady decline -- billings, payments, tax returns -- but suddenly it just fell off the cliff."
The postal service delivered 202 billion items in fiscal year 2008, which is
9 billion fewer than in 2007. It's the single biggest drop in history and it contributed to a $2.8 billion budget shortfall.
The decline is being witnessed at post offices nationwide, including Dubuque, where Postmaster Kevin Botsford said a recently completed review of its routes resulted in some changes to streamline operations.
"It's an effort to try to reduce costs and match work hours with workload,"
Botsford said. "It's in response to declining volume, and it has
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Dubuque's postal carriers are still busy. They deliver about 170,000 pieces of mail each day and cover nearly 1,800 miles on city and rural routes, making about 30,000 stops along the way.
Botsford said fears that the White Street Annex will close are premature and based on a normal review process that occurs each time the lease is up for renewal, which happens to be this year.
The efficiency measures are part of a nationwide effort to eliminate 100 million work hours and trim $5.9 billion from the budget, as volume continues to fall.
"Post offices nationwide are looking to consolidate where they can," Watkins said. "You have to remember that our service is not tax supported. Local managers have to manage those dollars and sometimes make tough decisions."
Things are changing. Standard mail, mostly advertising, overtook first class mail as the largest mail category in 2005 as more people communicate by e-mail than by letter. In fiscal year 2008, the post office delivered 99.1 billion pieces of standard mail, but was down 4.3 percent. First class mail dropped 4.8 percent to 91.7 billion cards and letters. Periodicals fell 2.2 percent to 8.6 billion.
When U.S. Postmaster General John Potter reported the state of the post office to a congressional committee in January, he requested that Congress consider lifting the requirement of six-day per week delivery. That isn't likely to happen, Watkins said, but it does indicate the seriousness of the financial problems.
"That's all anybody is talking about, but it was in context of several other things," Watkins said. "But people do check the mail every day. It's part of America and it still drives business."
