By Sarah Michalos, Daily Journal of Johnson County staff writer
Paying your credit card or energy bill online may save trees and the cost of stamps.
But there's one group not benefiting from your plan to go green or have less bills clogging your mailbox: the local post offices.
Postmasters in Johnson County are reporting decreases in mail volume the past year, some more than 10 percent, as a growing number of businesses and residents rely on e-mail and pay bills online more frequently.
Mail carriers with fewer letters to sort and deliver are facing cuts in their hours.
In Indiana, mail volume is down more than 15 percent since October, Indianapolis Postal Service spokeswoman Kim Yates said.
Nationally, volume has dropped about 4.5 percent from 2007 to 2008, which equates to about 9.5 billion fewer pieces of mail.
The postmaster general is asking Congress for permission to reduce mail delivery from six to five days a week because the service is running out of money, a crunch that's been in the making for years but has been magnified recently by the economic downturn.
Gone are the days when carriers would stuff magazines and thick, colorful advertisements into people's mailboxes, along with notices advertising deals for auto insurance and low-interest credit cards, Greenwood delivery supervisor Beverly Irwin said.
First class mail, which includes bills, holiday greeting or birthday cards and other personal mail, has been on a steady decline for the past five to 10 years, she said.
"What we attribute directly to the economy is the reduction of standard mail, like magazines and bulk mailings," Irwin said. "Your Macy's, J.C. Penney's, nothing's coming out quite as often as it did."
Patients of Franklin dentist Jeffrey Fisher get postcards in the mail reminding them of their upcoming appointment, and sending out reminders via e-mail has been considered, dental assistant Fran Oakes said.
"That's a good idea, but only if all your patients have e-mail," she said.
The office sends out about 250 postcards per month, some to older patients who don't have access to e-mail, Oakes said. Small postcards cost 27 cents each to send, which means that the office spends more than $800 per year to mail out appointment reminders.
It's apparent that other companies have been cutting back on their mailers, interim Whiteland Postmaster Angela Hunsucker said. Town postal carriers, paid by the hour, are struggling to meet their 40 hours every week because of a decline in mail, she said.
Carriers that are supposed to work eight hours a day are now pulling up to the post office with empty mail trucks after less than seven hours.
Full-time carriers have been taking turns delivering for a town auxiliary route, or backup route, to help boost their weekly hours to 40, Hunsucker said.
A recent evaluation shows that Whiteland carriers who deliver to rural areas are losing between three and five hours per week, time that usually would have been spent sorting mail, loading the trucks and making deliveries, she said.
"We've gone from (carriers) having Saturday and Sunday off to having every other Saturday off," Hunsucker said. "They have to work more to keep their hours at 40."
A new plan to have a machine sort flat mail, or magazines and advertisements that people occasionally receive but don't subscribe to, is expected to further whittle down carriers' hours.
The amount of flat mail that goes through the Franklin post office has decreased 14 percent from what carriers were handling at this time last year, Postmaster Rob Ford said.
Overall, Franklin's city carriers are handling nearly 10 percent less mail than last year, the sharpest decline Ford has seen in the more than two decades he's worked for the post office.
On average, mail volume in the United States has decreased from 705 million pieces per day in 2007 to 667 million pieces daily last year, according to the post office's 2008 report.
More recently, six post office districts closed last week, but none in Indiana, Yates said.
Postal officials announced Thursday that three processing centers would be eliminated, including one in Fort Wayne, where more than 500 people are employed.
Congress is considering a proposal to eliminate one day of postal service per week to help the agency stay afloat, brought forward by the head of the service.
Local postal offices aren't sure how they'll be affected if one day of service is eliminated, but which day is taken away would play a factor, Ford said.
"If it were Saturday, then every Monday we'd have twice the amount of work to do," he said. "Mondays are already one of our busiest days."
If a weekday were eliminated, residents would have to adjust when they stamp and send out bill payments and letters. Businesses, schools and others that rely on mass mailings also likely would have to tweak their mailing schedules, Ford said.