CBS News: The U.S. Postal Service on Thursday said it needs to shave more costs from its operations to get into better financial shape. To do that, the postal agency wants to overhaul its delivery logistics, resulting in some customers likely seeing a slowdown in their mail delivery.

The new plan, which will be filed with the USPS’ regulatory commission, comes about three years after the mail service embarked on a 10-year plan to stanch billions of dollars in losses and put the agency on the path to profitability. The 10-year plan, implemented by Postmaster Louis DeJoy, also slowed delivery standards, with the service guaranteeing five-day delivery instead of its previous three-day delivery window.

The proposed changes will shave about $3 billion a year, the USPS said on Thursday. But, it added, “Depending on location, time and distance, expected time to deliver will increase for some ZIP code pairs.”

The USPS has also boosted the price of Forever stamps several times within the past few years, prompting some critics to say that customers are paying more for worse service. With the proposed changes, the slower service could be felt by rural areas and for mail that needs to travel long distances, DeJoy told the Washington Post.

“At the end of the day, I think some portion of the mail showing up 12 hours later, I think it’s a price that had to be paid for letting this place be neglected,” DeJoy told the publication.

Under the proposed changes, all mail would still be delivered in its service standard of delivery within two to five days, a USPS spokesman told CBS MoneyWatch. The majority of mail from rural areas is currently delivered in 3 days or less, which would continue to be the case, he added.

Mail delivery from some rural areas, however, may take an additional 12 to 24 hours, but would still arrive within a range of two to five days, he added. In some cases, a piece of mail that might have taken three days to arrive could take four days instead, for example, the spokesman added.

Read more: USPS says it wants to save $3 billion a year. Some rural mail delivery could get slower. – CBS News