SPRINGFIELD, Mo. - Every day, tens of thousands of letters and packages from 250 post offices in the Ozarks flow through Springfield's mail processing center.
“We are the second largest processing facility handling that many post offices in the United States,” explained Brucke Lincoln, president of American Postal Workers Union, Local 888.
Despite the distinction, Springfield is potentially on the chopping block as part of a cost cutting move by the USPS. The plan call for operations to be consolidated with Kansas City, located three hours away.
Due to pressure from lawmakers, the post office decided it won’t make a final decision on any closures until May. However, KY3 News has learned the ball has already started rolling north.
“They are actually, in some of the plants of our size, piece-mealing the operations to other facilities,” Lincoln said.
For months now, some mail sent from the Ozarks has been arriving at its destination- not with a Springfield postmark- but one from KC. Come to find out, one day a week, mail is already being trucked 167 miles to Kansas City for processing.
“We do have some Saturday operations [that are] part of our are mail processing, and we do have consolidations on Saturday,” explained Russell Floyd, representative of USPS Mid-America District.
Much of that mail is then shipped all the way back to the Ozarks for delivery.
“We have quite a few similar happenings across the nation,” Floyd said. “
“That is going to cause delays on the weekend mail,” argues Bruce Lincoln.
The USPS said nobody has lost their job so far.
“Employees would just have a different job assignments, maybe different days off,” Floyd said.
The USPS also confirms that the processing of forwarded mail is also leaving town in the coming weeks.
"So they are going to just start moving our operations a little at a time," Lincoln said. "Even though there is a moratorium going on, this place could be a carcass come this summer."
