STOCKTON, CA — As a result of a study that began on October 5, 2010, the Postal Service has made the decision to move some mail processing operations from the Stockton Mail Processing Facility, 3131 Arch Airport Road, Stockton CA to the Sacramento Processing and Distribution Center (P&DC), 1775 Industrial Blvd., West Sacramento, CA. The move will be completed by October 1, 2011.

Sacramento District Manager Al Santos said, “Given the drastic 20 percent decline in mail volume the Postal Service has experienced since 2007, we must take action to reduce the size of our mail processing network. Consolidating operations and placing our people where we need them is necessary if the Postal Service is to remain viable to provide mail service to the nation. The significant cost savings and productivity gains expected from this consolidation were deciding factors in making this very difficult decision.”

“I understand our employees’ concern over this move,” Santos added, “but the consolidation makes sense given the fiscal realities. The Sacramento P&DC has the capacity to handle the additional workload and we can realize significant savings by shifting operations there.”

Affected career employees will be reassigned to other vacant positions within the area.

This move will not cause any changes in local mail delivery. Letters mailed to local addresses will be delivered the next day, the same as before. The mail that originates and collected in Stockton will be transferred to Sacramento for processing instead of being processed in Stockton. The transition will be smooth and transparent to our customers and they will continue to receive the same excellent service they always have.

Retail service for purchasing stamps and other postal products will continue to be available at the Stockton facility on Arch Airport Road.

Large volume business mailers will continue to bring their mail to the Stockton facility Business Mail Entry Unit.

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A self-supporting government enterprise, the U.S. Postal Service is the only delivery service that reaches every address in the nation, 150 million residences, businesses and Post Office Boxes. The Postal Service receives no tax dollars for operating expenses, and relies on the sale of postage, products and services to fund its operations. We’re everywhere so you can be anywhere: www.uspseverywhere.com. With 32,000 retail locations and the most frequently visited website in the federal government, usps.com, the Postal Service has annual revenue of more than $67 billion and delivers nearly 40 percent of the world’s mail. If it were a private sector company, the U.S. Postal Service would rank 29th in the 2010 Fortune 500. Black Enterprise and Hispanic Business magazines ranked the Postal Service as a leader in workforce diversity. The Postal Service has been named the Most Trusted Government Agency six consecutive years and the sixth Most Trusted Business in the nation by the Ponemon Institute.