OIG revises announcement of its S&DC audit (again), will now focus on communication

Steve HutkinsBlog, Featured

The USPS Office of Inspector General has made some changes in the announcement about its audit of the Postal Service’s Sorting and Delivery Centers. It’s the second time the announcement has been revised. In December, the OIG’s website said one of the ongoing audits would focus on the Postal Service’s “Development and Communication of Sorting and Delivery Centers.” As shown … Read More

The Postal Service unwinds the NDC network and merges the mail streams

Steve HutkinsBlog, Featured

As part of its 10-year plan to streamline the network, the Postal Service is in the process of “unwinding” its 21 Network Distribution Centers, which handle Marketing Mail, Periodicals and some ground packages. One of the goals of this NDC Unwind is to merge the mail and packages handled by the NDCs into the First Class Mail stream. While that … Read More

USPS OIG pushes back release date of audit of S&DC plan

Steve HutkinsBlog, Featured

In December, the USPS Office of Inspector General announced that it had initiated an audit of the Postal Service’s “Development and Communication of Sorting and Delivery Centers.” As shown on this version of the announcement from the Internet Archive, the estimated release date was originally June 28, 2023. Sometime over the past week or two, the OIG’s website changed the … Read More

The first two historic post offices put at risk by the S&DC plan

Steve HutkinsBlog, Featured

This month the Postal Service is continuing implementation of its initiative to transform the delivery network. Seventeen post offices are seeing their carriers relocated to five new Sorting & Delivery Centers (S&DCs). A list of them is here. After the carriers are gone and more than half the floor space becomes “excess,” the fate of these post offices will be … Read More

New carrier cases spotted at a new S&DC

Steve HutkinsNews

Spotted on reddit, a couple of photographs of the new carrier cases that have just arrived at one of the new Sorting & Delivery Centers. The reply comments are interesting. Here’s a sample: “Indianapolis is coming soon. They say anytime now because the building is ready. This shit is not going to work and we will lose a ton of … Read More

The USPS Eagle spins S&DCs to postal employees

Steve HutkinsBlog, Featured

The cover story of the new issue of the Postal Service’s Eagle Magazine is “Re-Thinking Local Delivery.”  It’s all about the big, new, modern Sorting and Delivery Centers that will replace carrier operations at your local post office. The article has a graphic showing a delivery vehicle out on a route making stops at the ten benefits of the new … Read More

Lawsuits respond to USPS announcement it will buy more EVs

Steve HutkinsBlog, Featured

On Dec. 20, 2022, the Postal Service issued a press release announcing it would buy more electric vehicles than it had committed to just a few months ago. On that same day, the Postal Service submitted the press release to two district courts that are hearing challenges to the USPS environmental impact statements that were done in connection with purchasing … Read More

Canada’s postal workers want to put public charging stations at post offices: Why can’t it happen here?

Steve HutkinsBlog, Featured

The Canadian Union of Postal Workers has put forward a plan — Delivering Community Power — to transform the postal system in ways that will “fight climate change and deliver vital new services to every corner of the country.” Under the plan, post offices would offer new services, like high-speed internet; provide low-fee financial services; and expand their role as … Read More

Clearing up a few misconceptions about S&DCs and EVs

Steve HutkinsBlog, Featured

The Washington Post is reporting that the Postal Service plans to spend almost $10 billion for 66,000 electric vehicles and related infrastructure, a big win for the Biden administration and environmentalists. This is, of course, very good news, and one hesitates to throw cold water on the announcement. But unfortunately, in reporting on its scoop, the Post — as it … Read More

USPS OIG launches audit of plan to centralize carrier operations

Steve HutkinsBlog, Featured

The USPS Office of Inspector General is doing an audit of the Postal Service’s plan to relocate letter carriers from post offices to centralized Sort & Delivery Centers. Here’s the OIG’s announcement: Postal Service’s Development and Communication of Sorting and Delivery Centers Recently, the Postal Service announced their intention to consolidate delivery operations at more than 200 post offices and … Read More

The PRC finally starts asking the USPS about the S&DC plan

Steve HutkinsBlog, Featured

The Postal Regulatory Commission is currently reviewing the Postal Service’s request to make its pilot USPS Connect Local Mail (CLM) a permanent product. CLM offers same or next-day delivery for documents sent at a post office with a delivery unit (carrier operation) to the addresses served by that DU. Today the PRC asked how the CLM product would be impacted … Read More