More than a half-dozen rural post offices in central Maine will host meetings over the next two weeks to help determine when they will be open for retail business.
Part of a nationwide effort by the U.S. Postal Service to reduce costs, the meetings are scheduled to report on the results of a mail survey of residents in those ZIP codes.
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A public meeting is scheduled for 4 p.m. Tuesday at the post office at 140 North Main St. in North Monmouth, where a 2012 plan called for hours to be reduced from eight hours to four.
Another meeting is set for 4 p.m. Tuesday in the post office at 15 Exeter Road in Corinna, where the proposal called for a reduction from eight hours to six.
The meetings will help determine the retail and lobby hours and whether they will be split between mornings and afternoons, said Melissa Lohnes, a spokeswoman for the U.S. Postal Service’s Northeast Area.
No closures are planned for any of the offices and the changes should not affect delivery service, she said.
The Postal Service is nearing the end of a two-year look at post offices across the United States in an effort to reduce a deficit that was $5 billion in 2013.
A report from the Postal Service in November said savings from “plant consolidations, restructuring hours at Post Offices, reductions in delivery units, and workforce optimization resulted in approximately $1 billion of savings in 2013.”
Two years of surveys and meetings will end in September and the changes will be enacted shortly afterward, Lohnes said.
Other upcoming local post office meetings:
• East Winthrop, 4 p.m. Wednesday (a reduction from eight hours to six);
• China Village, 4 p.m. July 29 (a reduction from eight hours to four);
• New Sharon, 6 p.m. Aug. 5 (a reduction from eight hours to six);
• New Vineyard, 4 p.m. Aug. 5 (a reduction from eight hours to four);
• Vassalboro, 6 p.m. July 29 (a reduction from eight hours to four).
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