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After insisting for nearly a year that there would be no detrimental impacts from moving some operations from Hampden to Scarborough, the U.S. Postal Service last week announced it was abandoning its plans to consolidate the two Maine facilities.
We understand that the Postal Service faces significant financial challenges that necessitate changes in operations and business practices. But diminishing services and reducing employment, especially in rural areas, does not seem like an effective strategy. Especially when customers and employees in those areas are told that the upcoming changes will somehow be beneficial without firm evidence to back up those claims.
Last Monday, the Postal Service said it is pursuing a new strategy to save $3 billion nationally and that, if the proposed new plan is approved, it would no longer need to consolidate some services between the Hampden and Scarborough facilities.
“The USPS’s decision to permanently abandon its proposed changes to the Hampden facility is welcome news for the people of Maine,” U.S. Sen. Susan Collins said last Monday in a press release. “As I have said repeatedly, any consolidation of Maine’s two USPS processing facilities located in Hampden and Scarborough would have jeopardized the reliable delivery of mail.”
“Mail service in Maine is even more important given that it is the oldest state by median age and one of the nation’s most rural,” added Collins, who along with U.S. Sen. Angus King and U.S. Rep. Jared Golden, wrote numerous letters to Postmaster General Louis DeJoy objecting to the proposed changes. “This decision will ensure that mail delivery will remain the same and that the employees of the Hampden plant will keep their jobs.”
We’re left wondering why the Postal Service didn’t investigate these alternatives earlier, before proposing to consolidate mail processing facilities in several states, which prompted members of Congress, including Maine’s delegation, to take steps to stop such moves.
Last fall, the Postal Service said it was studying the Hampden facility with an eye toward consolidating it with the postal facility in Scarborough.
In what was billed as a modernization, the Postal Service later said it planned to convert the mail processing facility in Hampden to a local processing center. All outgoing mail operations would be moved to Scarborough. Although Postal Service officials said no career employees would be laid off with the changes, about a dozen employees would have been reassigned.
Throughout the process, details of the Postal Service’s plans, and the rationale for them, were vague.
The proposal was criticized by lawmakers, union officials and Maine’s secretary of state, who warned that mail delays could slow the return of ballots during elections.
In April, Golden proposed legislation to eliminate funding for the Postal Service’s review of mail processing facilities.
It shouldn’t have taken pointed inquiries and legislation from lawmakers for the Postal Service to drop its consolidation plans. Its core business is delivering mail. Diminishing that service would have been a loss for everyone. We’re glad the Postal Service seems to have realized that and is looking for other ways to save money. It could have saved Mainers a lot of concern with a fuller examination and clearer communication from the beginning.
