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Serving Northern St. Louis County, Minnesota

Don’t let Congress dismantle the Postal Service

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What a mess. That’s the only way to describe the current status of mail delivery in our area in the wake of the closure of the Duluth processing facility last month. It’s a far cry from the “seamless” transition promised by postal service spokespeople back in February when they confirmed plans to shutter Duluth’s mail processing center.

If the past few weeks are any indicator, however, I’d say the seams are pretty frayed right now.

Easily, one out of every three phone calls we fielded this past week came from readers in St. Louis County who failed to get their papers on the usual day. In-county residents have routinely received their papers on Friday, which is the expected delivery date for the papers we mail each Thursday. But this past week, many Iron Range readers didn’t receive their paper until the following Wednesday.

The closure of the Duluth facility won’t effect our primary readership since we continue to drop papers directly at the local post offices in Cook, Orr, Tower, Soudan, Ely, and Babbitt, but for readers outside our immediate area it appears delivery dates will be up in the air, at least for now. We can only hope that procedures will improve, but it’s possible it will get worse before it gets better. That’s because processing centers in Bemidji, St. Cloud, and Mankato are slated to close later this summer, and that will only add to the massive pile-up of mail at the Twin Cities sorting center.

The ripple effects of the closure of these regional processing centers are only beginning to be felt, but it’s already clear that the impacts are real.

For businesses in particular, the delays in postal delivery are compounding. For one, the early pick-up times mean, in many cases, a letter mailed in late morning or later doesn’t actually go out until the next day. For businesses putting out their monthly billing, that adds at least a day’s delay heading out, and another day’s delay, in most cases, on the return. That will affect cash flow for many businesses and will slow their ability to pay their own bills in many instances. Delays at each step compound the problem.

Those who rely on the mail to pay bills could easily be missing deadlines and potentially incurring late fees. The St. Louis County Auditor issued a press release late last week reminding people they’ll need to mail the first half of their property taxes a day early in most cases in order to avoid late fees from missing the May 15 deadline.

It should be noted that the problem doesn’t lie with our local postal workers, who are just as frustrated as the rest of us.

There’s a long list of reasons behind the closure of the Duluth processing facility, and the subsequent deterioration of mail delivery in our region, but the biggest single problem is Congress. It’s Congress, after all, that has prevented the post office from expanding the services it provides to customers, a move that could increase revenues for the Post Office. And it’s Congress, back in 2006, that passed the so-called “Postal Accountability and Enhancement Act,” which is forcing the Postal Service to divert more than $5 billion from its operating revenues annually to pre-fund its retiree pension obligations for 75 years— something no other federal entity is required to do.

The requirement is strangling the Postal Service and is the primary impetus behind the closure of 252 processing facilities around the country, including Duluth’s.

The closures are supposed to save $2 billion annually, but it’s a false economy. The closure of these facilities will only worsen the Postal Service’s financial struggles as people and businesses increasingly turn to alternative delivery methods, particularly the Internet, to compensate for the poorer delivery service resulting from the closures. Someone who gets nicked with a late fee on a credit card bill once or twice because their check got delayed in the mail, is going to take the time to set up online payment. Indeed, the latest moves by the Postal Service are more likely the beginning of a financial death spiral than a turn-around.

Some in Congress clearly had that in mind back in 2006 when they forced the Post Office to pre-fund its retiree benefits to an unprecedented extent. Some in Washington don’t like the Post Office because its workers are unionized and well compensated, which is an affront to many free market devotees.

At the same time, some private delivery services would love the opportunity to break up the Postal Service and take over the most profitable parts of the business. It’s all part of the ongoing effort to dismantle the middle class by eliminating unionized workforces and replacing them with lower-paid workers with minimal benefits. And we’re talking about a massive workforce— the Postal Service currently employs over 600,000 Americans, with a total annual payroll of $43 billion.

Breaking up the Postal Service would not only speed the decline of the middle class, it would be a disaster for rural parts of the country, where mail delivery has always been a financial loser. Rest assured, no private company, even with a low-paid workforce, is going to deliver a letter, or anything else, to a home mailbox in places like Silverdale, Buyck, or Isabella, for 49 cents— much less do so six days a week! Rural residents are major beneficiaries of the Postal Service requirement that mail must be delivered to virtually all road-accessible residents for the same low cost anywhere in the country. If the Postal Service, as we know it, disappears, and rural areas are forced to rely on private services, we could see the cost of delivery of things like newspapers or first class letters skyrocket even as good-paying Postal Service jobs that supported middle class families in our communities are replaced with low-wage jobs.

There’s a simple solution. The federal government should, once again, provide a reasonable level of operational support for the Postal Service. Let’s face it, delivery of the mail is a critical public service, and there’s no reason that we should expect user fees alone to cover the cost. We pay to use our national parks, but user fees only supplement the cost of operating parks. No one expects the parks to finance themselves. We don’t expect any other federal agency to fund itself entirely out of user fees. Why should such a critical function, like mail delivery, be any different?

Our region has a lot to lose from the dismantling of the Postal Service. We need to start speaking up about it.

Call your members of Congress:

• Rep. Rick Nolan, 202-225-6211.

• Sen. Amy Klobuchar, 202-224-3244

• Sen. Al Franken, 202-224-5641.