In addition, there has been a nationwide hiring freeze; salaries of officers and executives have been frozen; hours have been adjusted to reflect customer use; and mail processing operations have been consolidated.
The postal service also has proposed the idea of moving to five-day delivery.
“It is critical to the long-term viability of our nation’s postal system,” Spangler said.
Spangler said Saturday would be the non-carrier delivery day because it has the lowest volume of mail for delivery yet the same level of fixed costs as other delivery days.
Dropping Saturday mail delivery, Spangler said, would minimize the inconvenience for customers since many business and professional offices are open Monday through Friday.
“Weekday delivery would not change,” Spangler said.
A change to five-day delivery also would not affect retail operations, pickup for post office boxes or call customers, as mail would continue to be delivered to the post office on Saturdays.
The postal service estimates it can save $3.5 billion annually by moving to five-day-per-week delivery.
But postal service workers can’t simply move to five-day delivery. It would take an act of Congress — literally.
In March and again in August, Postmaster General John E. Potter requested that Congress allow the postal service to move to five-day delivery, but it has not happened.
Spangler said the postal service probably is a long way from a move to five-day delivery. She doesn’t anticipate it happening anytime soon.
That’s good news for Ryan Beltz, advertising production manager at Affiliated Foods Midwest in Norfolk.
Beltz said that if the post office moved to five-day delivery — specifically dropping Saturday from the carrier schedule — it would pose problems in sending out the company’s date-sensitive catalogs.
“It would hit us on being able to deliver to the stores,” he said.
Affiliated currently sends up to 400 catalogs out through priority mail on Thursday evening. Those items usually reach the recipient’s mailbox on Saturday, he said.
If the post office moved to five-day delivery, Beltz said Affiliated would be forced to pay more by using UPS.
Others wouldn’t be affected as much by the move to five-day delivery. Bill Adams, director of registration at Faith Regional Health Services in Norfolk, said the impact of five-day delivery would be minimal to the hospital’s business operations.
Spangler said private citizens and businesses shouldn’t worry about the postal service making such a drastic move anytime soon because there are many hoops that need to be jumped through first.
“For now, people should take for granted that they’re going to get mail six days a week until they hear otherwise,” Spangler said.
