LITTLE ROCK — Eight postal facilities in Arkansas were among 677 nationwide recommended for closure Monday by the cash-strapped U.S. Postal Service.
At least four of the facilities already have been shuttered.
The list includes three postal facilities in Little Rock, three in the Fort Smith area and one each in Fayetteville and North Little Rock.
Also Monday, postal officials announced a Dec. 20 public meeting to discuss a plan to move some postal service processing operations from Hot Springs to Little Rock.
Consolidating the operations would improve efficiency and save money, Postal Services officials in Arkansas said.
Independent reporting for Pine Bluff & Jefferson County since 1879.
Closing postal facilities and consolidating some operations are part of about $3 billion in reductions the USPS is planning in attempt to avoid bankruptcy. Postal officials said Monday the cuts would slow down delivery of first-class mail.
The restructuring plan would add a day’s delivery time to first-class mail that has been delivered in one to three days. An overnight express option for delivery would remain.
The Postal Service, which has operated in the red for five years, announced in July a plan to study 3,653 local post offices and branches across the country for possible closure.
The list included 179 locations in Arkansas, or about 30 percent of the 589 postal facilities in the state.
Postal Service officials presented the list of 677 post offices recommended for possible closure or consolidation to a U.S. House subcommittee Monday. The panel is holding hearings on the future of mail delivery in the country.
About 200 of the 677 post offices or branches actually will be closed, according to a Washington Post report.
The post offices and branches in Arkansas on the list released by the Postal Service include:
—Johnson Station in Fayetteville.
—North Little Rock Main Street Station.
—The Pleasant Ridge Station in Little Rock and the Aerospace Finance Station, which already have been closed, and the Otter Creek Station, which remains open.
—The Barling Station in Barling.
—The Rogers Avenue Station and South Fort Smith Station in Fort Smith, both of which have already closed.
The public meeting to discuss the possible consolidation of some processing operations from the Hot Springs Customer Service mail Processing Center to the Little Rock Processing and Distribution Center is to be held at the Austin Hotel and Convention Center Ballroom in Hot Springs.
The consolidation was been recommended because a preliminary study found that redundancies would be reduced and cost savings would occur if some of the services were merged, said Leisa Tolliver-Gay, spokeswoman for the Postal Service in Arkansas.