The U.S. Postal Service is moving forward with plans to outsource the bulk of South Dakota’s outgoing mail distribution operations to Omaha, Neb.
A similar proposal has been made for the Aberdeen and Huron areas, but there’s been no public confirmation about it.
According to an announcement from USPS obtained by The Dakota Scout, while the Postal Service will invest millions to upgrade its facilities in Sioux Falls, the “business case” favors moving outgoing mail transfer out of state.
That means changing the Sioux Falls regional processing center to a “local processing center.”
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The same could happen for Dakota Central Regional Processing Center in Huron. If so, much of the mail processed in Huron — including that from the Aberdeen area — would be sent to Fargo, N.D., then to Huron for processing.
Under the USPS plan, there would be 60 regional processing centers that oversee 190 local processing centers nationwide.
The plan for Sioux Falls, and potentially Huron, is a cog in the Postal Service’s overall “Delivering for America” project to spend $40 billion nationally to modernize services. That includes new facilities, sorting equipment and even battery-powered vehicles in what the federal government is promoting as moving USPS toward “green energy.”
USPS changes discussed at meetings in Sioux Falls, Huron
While the changes in Sioux Falls come with no layoffs, postal officials conceded during March during a town hall meeting that 35 career service positions and three supervisory positions would be lost in the market. Those losses would come through Postal Service employment transfers or attrition.
There was a similar meeting in Huron last December. During the session, a postal official said at that time there were no plans to layoff or reassign any career postal officials.
But, according to reporting by The Huron Plainsman, an official said “that transferring some operations and the ‘reassignment’ of seven non-career employees and two non-career management positions would save the USPS between $730,000 and $970,000.”
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During the Sioux Falls meeting, dozens of participants expressed skepticism that the changes would improve service.
Even with the changes, USPS believes it can still meet its pledge of two-day service for local mail, though some questioned how that could be possible, especially when the weather is bad.
Has USPS lost ‘core value’ of its mission?
Mark Anderson, the retired president of the AFL-CIO in South Dakota, said Wednesday, May 1 that the Postal Service has lost the core value of its mission.
“My contention is the Postal Service has never been about making money,” he said. “It is a service to the people of the country.
“As far as I’m concerned, we didn’t gain mail service with this,” he said. “It’s just a lose-lose as far as I can tell.”
The $12.75 million for upgrades in Sioux Falls include $6.5 million in modernization and deferred maintenance, including upgrades to restrooms, break rooms and lockers and new lighting and flooring.
If the Huron facility is downgraded, USPS would reportedly spend about $3 million on upgrades at Dakota Central.
A spokesman with USPS declined to provide an update on the Huron distribution center.
Aberdeen has been hit by past postal reorganizations
South Dakota’s congressional delegation has voiced opposition to the changes, arguing they could slow service and that eastern South Dakota, including Aberdeen Mobridge and Pierre, have already borne the brunt of past Postal Service reorganizations.
Those 2012 changes were the result of a 2011 USPS study that resulted in Aberdeen mail being sent to the Dakota Central center in Huron to be processed. There had been a 20% decrease in nationwide mail volume between 2007 and 2011, which led to the changes, a postal official said at the time.
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Before the 2012 change, local mail was processed in Aberdeen.
Downgrading the Huron facility would add another stop — in Fargo — for mail from the Aberdeen area. ZIP codes starting with 572-, 573-, 574- and 575- would be affected.
There used to be a post office in the federal courthouse in downtown Aberdeen, which closed in 2010.