In 2012, the US Postal Service introduced POSTPlan as a means of keeping Post Offices open by reducing hours. The Huletts Landing Post Office is now only open 4 hours per day. POSTPlan reduced operations at many rural Post Offices to 2, 4 or 6 hours per day in hundreds of Post Offices throughout the country.
Although POSTPlan kept many offices open, they do not have Postmasters and many postmaster jobs were lost. According to rough statistics – there were roughly 32,000 Postmasters a decade ago, while today the number is closer to 14,000. The lowest level of Post Office with full-time Postmasters is known as a Level 18 Post Office and excludes Post Offices that are open 2, 4 or 6 hours per day which resulted from the POSTPlan implementation.
It is believed that the US Postal Service is evaluating the 337 Level 18 Post offices to see if they could be downgraded to 4-hour or 6-hour facilities in the near future. It is also believed that the Postal Service is evaluating the 2,296 4-hour and 6-hour facilities (of which the Huletts Landing Post Office is now included) to see if they could be downgraded to 2-hour and 4-hour facilities.
While little is known about the evaluation process, it does appear that rural America could see further reductions in postal hours at small rural post offices. The best way to see that no further reduction in hours occur at our local Post Office is to buy your stamps and postage in Huletts. One measurement that is used in determining Post Office hours is the amount of postage sold.
I will continue to follow this issue and will update the Huletts Current accordingly.