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Locations in Elizabeth, Jersey City, Newark and Paterson among the more than 3,000 facilities under review nationwide
BY JOE TYRRELL
NEWJERSEYNEWSROOM.COM
Facing a rising tide of red ink, the U.S. Postal Service is reviewing thousands of its offices around the nation, including some in New Jersey, as potential candidates for closure.
The postal service has lost money in 10 of the past 11 quarters, and the outlook has worsened as the weak economy has contributed to a decline in customers. In 2006, the service moved 213 billion pieces of mail, but projects about 180 billion this year.
"We are facing losses of historic proportion," Postmaster General John Potter told Congress in March, and the picture has not brightened.
While postal revenues tend to yo-yo up-and-down, in May, the service announced it had lost $1.9 billion in the second quarter of the fiscal year that began Oct. 1, 2008. In the same period a year earlier, it lost only $35 million.
In response to the bleak financial situation, postal officials announced earlier this year that they expect to close about 300 facilities. But more than 10 times that number are under scrutiny, based on factors including mail volume, foot traffic and accessibility.
They include locations in Elizabeth, Jersey City, Newark and Paterson, according to a report by northjersey.com.
In March, the postal service announced it would offer early retirement to as much as one-quarter of its workforce, and close several administrative centers, including one at its Kilmer complex in Edison.
The postal service is funded by its own products and services, but its May 11 increase in rates, which saw the cost of a first-class stamp rise to 44 cents, is not expected to be sufficient to offset the decline in sales.
Potter won praise from the service's board of governors for cost-cutting measures last year, which saved $2 billion more than estimated. One new initiative, paying for retiree health costs from a health benefit fund, would have been enough to put the service into the black in 2007.
The agency previously instituted a hiring freeze and a moratorium on new construction.
But with continued losses since then, Congress has been cool to Potter's other suggestion as a next step, a reduction in mail deliveries to five days a week. He estimated that could save $2 billion to $3.5 billion, but some in Congress question whether service reductions will cost revenue in the longer term.
