Postal Service plan to move services out of Sioux Falls gets negative reception

Local mail would go to Omaha, only to be sent back to Sioux Falls for delivery

U.S. Postal Service officials Kathy Hand and Mark Inglett start a public forum on moving some postal operations from Sioux Falls to Omaha. (Jonathan Ellis/The Dakota Scout)

A plan to downsize U.S. Post Office operations in Sioux Falls met with a healthy dose of skepticism Wednesday among dozens of people who attended a public meeting on the proposal.

The plan calls for removing Sioux Falls as a processing and distribution center and revamping operations as a local processing center. Outgoing mail that currently gets distributed around the country from Sioux Falls would instead be sent to Omaha. Omaha would serve as one of 60 regional processing and distribution centers. Sioux Falls’ facility would be designated as a local processing center, one of 190 in the nation.

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That would mean even local mail sent from one Sioux Falls address to another would first go to Omaha by truck and then return to Sioux Falls by truck for delivery. Meanwhile, the move would result in the reduction of about 35 career postal employees and three supervisory positions in Sioux Falls. Those employees would have an option to transfer to another market, or, the downsizing would occur through natural attrition.

“It is absolute fiction that we are closing this facility and laying off career employees,” said Kathy Hand, a USPS senior division director and one of three USPS officials who presented at the forum.

The move is part of a broader $40 billion Postal Service effort to streamline services and become more cost efficient across its operations.

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