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Staffing, workload key factors for Wilsonville post office
WILSONVILLE, Nebraska -- It boils down to two things: The Wilsonville, Nebraska, post office does not have a career post master, and it has less than two hours of workload per day for the employee in the office.
For those two reasons, the post office in Wilsonville has been placed on a list of post offices from across the nation to study for closure or consolidation and delivery to customers by alternative service.
Kathy Hand of Grand Island, manager of Post Office Operations whose western Nebraska area has six possible closures, told Wilsonville residents Thursday evening that the postal service's efforts to rein in a $30 million-a-day loss have started at the top. The new post master general immediately cut his salary by 20 percent, Hand said. Sunday trucks and holiday trucks are being eliminated. The postal service has asked for the right to go to five-day delivery, Hand said, and there's a study into part-time windows. The postal service is not adding any new contract post offices, she said.
The postal service is not hiring any career post masters, and officials are looking at eliminating what officials call "vacant" offices -- those without a career post master. The post offices on the postal service's list are not being considered because they're losing revenue, Hand said.
"It's not performance driven. Wilsonville would be considered even if it had a positive cash flow," she said. It comes down, she said, to not having a career post master and having less than two hours of workload per day, which is described as time spent serving customers (such as sorting mail and waiting on customers at the window).
Hiring Wilsonville's clerk/ officer-in-charge as a post master is not an option, Hand said. "We're a business in financial straits," Hand said. "We're not hiring career employees. It's just not happening."
If the Wilsonville post office is closed, Hand said, the 54 box holders would get their mail in rural mail boxes at or near their doors or drives, or in neighborhood "cluster" boxes.
Hand told customers to fill out the surveys (questionnaires) sent out by the postal service, add their comments and return them. All the information regarding the possible closure, the surveys, comments and letters will be gathered into a "docket" that will be available, in about 30-45 days, for review by the public at the Wilsonville and Cambridge post offices. At that point, customers will have 30 days to add additional comments.
Hand said she will review the completed docket, make a recommendation and then pass the docket on up the chain of command for a final decision by post office officials in Washington, D.C.
Hand encouraged customers to "be very specific" in their comments on the survey and in letters to state senators, congressmen, U.S. Senators and post office officials. Don't simply sign and mail a form letter or write, "I don't want my post office to close," or "I don't want a rural mail box," she said. "Be very specific," Hand said, explain how a closure would make an impact financially, how it would be an inconvenience in regard to time and travel.
Hand said closing the post office in Wilsonville would add about 55 customers to the rural mail carrier's existing route. She said she will study the cost effectiveness of adding miles and stops to the already 145-mile daily route to rural Wilsonville, Lebanon, to some parts of Danbury and into Kansas.
The change would not require another carrier, Hand said. Adding a second carrier is not an option, she said.
Hand said her preference is rural boxes over cluster boxes. New rural boxes would be added along the carriers' existing route of travel, on one side of streets in Wilsonville.
The carrier's wage would go up, although he's not paid an hourly wage, she said. "It's fair," Hand said. "He drives more miles. He gets more money." He would also be compensated if he delivers to cluster boxes, she said.
Hand said the postal service has for years called its rural carriers "a post office on wheels," as they can offer so many post office services from their vehicles. "Your rural carrier can generally meet all the needs you have," Hand said.
"And our carriers are generally the best in the post office system," she said. "They see their customers, some every day. They generally care about their deliveries," and take special care of packages, such as medicines, putting them in places requested by the customers.
"I'm not telling you you'll never have to drive to Cambridge, or Danbury, or Hendley. It happens," Hand said. "But generally, the route carrier can meet the needs you have. He's really good to his customers."
Hand said she is concerned about an increased length of the rural route and the time it would take to travel it and still make it back to the Cambridge (or Danbury) post office in time for dispatch trucks. "That will have to be looked at," Hand said, to determine whether it would actually cost the post office more money in increased rural delivery costs than it would save in closing the Wilsonville post office.
The officer in charge in the Wilsonville post office would be offered a job in another post office, Hand said. "She may have to drive, yes," Hand said. "No one in my area will draw an unemployment check. They will be taken care of. I will do my best."
The savings then will be in rent and utilities, Hand said.
The Wilsonville post office is in the former school, and the lease extends into next year. Hand said most post office facility leases have 30-day cancellation clauses.
"No, closing the Wilsonville post office will not save the postal service," Hand said, asking that customers look at the big picture, that cumulative savings nation-wide would help the postal service better balance its budget.
"It's one step nation-wide the postal service is looking at," she said.
One Wilsonville customer asked how to avoid losing points on her credit rating because of a change of address that will be perceived by credit reporting services as a move and a reason for a lower credit rating. "Refute it," Hand said. Explain to the three credit services that you haven't moved, that you've simply gone from a post office box to a physical mailing address, she said.
Hand said she's heard comments that "this is a farming community" and that it's difficult to come to an early-evening meeting during wheat harvest. She asked customers to consider, "You're doing what you have to do to take care of your business. And the postal service is doing what it has to do to take care of its business."
That's one reason the postal service sends surveys, Hand said, so that every customer has the opportunity to comment whether or not he/she can attend a meeting.
E-mails to elected representatives would be helpful if copies are also sent to postal officials for inclusion in the docket.
While Hand will make a recommendation regarding the Wilsonville post office, the final decision is not hers, she said. "If the office is vacant (without a career post master) and has less than two hours (of workload per day), it (the decision) goes past me and up the chain, to Washington," Hand said.
Hand said the process is a "study, not a done deal. It's an opportunity for the community to give us their input."
Hand reiterated:
There will be a 60-day public posting of the proposal and an invitation for customer comments.
There will be a 30-day public posting of the final determination.
At that time, customers have another 30 days to appeal the decision to the Postal Regulatory Commission.
The Postal Regulatory Commission shall render a decision within 120 days.
"I would estimate December/January before customers would actually see a change if it is approved," Hand said.
Deborah VanMatre, liaison for Nebraska Congressman Adrian Smith, echoed Hand's advice about writing to elected officials, to Congressman Smith. "Use facts," she said. "Tell Congressman Smith how this will affect you."
Write to Smith's Grand Island office and address letter to Congressman Smith: 1811 West Second Street Suite 105; Grand Island, NE 68803.
District 44 State Senator Mark Christensen told Wilsonville postal customers they deserve the same services as customers in larger towns. He said he's been in contact with postal service representatives and elected officials. "I have wrote letters to representatives for you. I don't know if I carry any weight," he said. "But I have a title."
Christensen said he knows there's rural delivery, "but you lose services that way," he said. "It's important to keep services in our communities."
Christensen urged customers to write their own letters to postal service representatives and elected officials. He compared the process to proposals several years ago by the government to close ASCS (Agricultural Stabilization and Conservation Service) offices in Hayes and Hitchcock counties. "Communities have to be proactive," he said. "Because of a group like this (motioning at Wilsonville customers at the meeting), the Hayes County office was saved and the Hitchcock County office closed. Hayes County was more proactive than Hitchcock County," Christensen said. "The more you visit with them (representatives) the more options you have."
"I'll be blunt about it, they don't hear from you, it's gone," he said. "Step up, be proactive. It does work. Hayes County rallied its community, and they kept the Hayes County office open and ended up closing the Hitchcock County office."
Christensen encouraged residents to write to him, to other elected officials and postal service representatives. "Form letters get much less attention than your own letter thought out in your own style," he said. "It don't have to be long. It don't have to be elaborate."