by the Vermont Standard 

The United States Postal Service (USPS) is currently collecting public comments on its plan to shift mail sorting from White River Junction to Hartford, Conn. 

The proposed consolidation is part of “Delivery for America,” a 10-year nationwide plan to improve the USPS’s efficiency and reduce costs. The plan aims to help the postal service break even by 2030, preventing over $160 billion in projected losses. 

In a statement released on March 10, USPS announced that transitioning mail sorting away from White River Junction could generate an annual savings of $750-$950K. Although the plan would not cut any career positions in White River, it would result in a net decrease of six jobs. 

According to Stephen Doherty, a corporate communications specialist at USPS, however, many jobs that would be cut are currently unfilled. “When they did all the math, it is going to reduce the number of positions but some of those are vacant currently,” said Doherty, “and most of [the cuts] will be done by attrition.”

The White River Junction office is not the only sorting facility slated for consolidation. The USPS is also considering moving Burlington’s mail sorting to Connecticut, and across the country, “Delivery for America” proposes combining hundreds of sorting facilities into just 60 regional processing and distribution plants. 

“They’re looking at a logistics and processing network that was established and is set up for the way people used the mail 40 years ago when a lot of these facilities were built,” said Doherty. “We need to significantly retool our network so that it’s designed for the way people are using the mail today.” 

In part, the USPS is responding to a decline in mailed letters and a sharp uptick in parcels, a tradeoff that, according to Doherty, puts new pressures on an outdated system. “When the internet and email came along, people started sending emails and paying bills online,” said Doherty. “It cut back pretty dramatically on first class mail letters. But in the meantime, people began ordering more and more things online, and our package volume actually continues to grow even when compared with [levels during 2020 and 2021].”