Changes the U.S. Postal Service plans to put into effect this May that could lengthen the delivery window for First Class mail likely won't have much of an impact on business customers here who are sending out large quantities of mail in that classification, local and regional Postal Service representatives say.

Those planned changes could mean that First Class letters mailed and delivered within the greater Spokane-Coeur d'Alene area could take two days to reach a destination rather than the current next-day delivery, says Spokane Postmaster Karen Fairlee.

However, Fairlee also says if customers drop off their First Class mail during regular business hours those letters still could reach their destination the next day.

"If people are mailing locally within Spokane, it may be completely transparent," she says. "The worst-case scenario is if they are mailing outside of a local area. If you are mailing something to Walla Walla or Richland, it could be two days instead of one."

First Class mail that currently takes between two and three days before reaching its destination won't be affected, she says.

The extended delivery times for locally addressed First Class mail comes as a result of ongoing financial challenges the Postal Service has experienced over the last several years. A continual decline in First Class mail volume and the consequential revenue loss largely influenced the operational decision, says a December 2011 press release from the government mailing agency.

Between 2010 and 2011 revenue generated by First Class mail declined nearly 6 percent, from $34.2 billion in 2010 to $32.2 billion last year, the Postal Service says. Due to various escalating financial pressures, it says it must reduce its operating costs by $20 billion between now and 2015 to return to profitability.

In another effort to realize those operational savings, the Postal Service is evaluating 252 of its 487 mail processing facilities across the U.S. for possible closure, says Seattle-based USPS spokesman Ernie Swanson.

While the Postal Service's sizable Spokane mail sorting facility isn't included in those studies—that West Plains facility, at 2928 S. Spotted Road, handles on average 1.8 million pieces of mail a day—five other Northwest centers are, Swanson says. Those smaller sorting facilities are located in Wenatchee, Yakima, and Pasco, Wash., and in Missoula and Kalispell, Mont., he says.

The Postal Service plans to announce on May 15 which of those facilities will remain open or will close and consolidate operations to larger facilities, Swanson says. If any of the five sorting centers in central Washington or western Montana close, operations there would be relocated to the West Plains center, he adds.

That could mean an increase in employment at the sorting facility here, he says, although it's unknown at this time how many employees could be added there.

Fairlee says, "It's hard to say until we know for certain which facilities may or may not be closing and moving into Spokane, but in the biggest scenario if all facilities were impacted it might double the mail processed here."

That 264,200-square-foot sorting facility currently employs about 330 people, and processes mail for North Idaho and much of Eastern Washington.

Swanson says the proposal to possibly close the more than 250 smaller mail-sorting facilities across the U.S. also is expected to play a major role in the changes to First Class mail's delivery times.

"If the bulk of those proposals go through, there no longer would be overnight service for First Class stamped mail," he asserts.

Less than half of all mail sent in the U.S. is designated First Class, he says.

Fairlee says, however, that she doesn't expect many businesses or industry sectors in the Inland Northwest that typically send out large quantities of First Class mail to be impacted much by the proposed extension of delivery times. She expects the impact is going to be felt most on the receiving end by customers of those businesses who might be mailing back a bill payment that's due at a certain time.

"When you think about the large majority of First Class mail that's mailed by a business, it's a statement or an invoice, and the important part of the impact is the returned piece of mail that accompanies that," Fairlee says. "If you bill someone through the mail, it comes back to how fast the money is returned. That's not impacted by the mail so much as it is when someone decides to make their payment."

She says she'd advise consumers who wait until the last day to meet a payment deadline, and are sending that payment via First Class mail, to use an alternative mail service once changes go into effect.

Swanson agrees and says he would expect businesses and customers who'd be impacted most by the First Class changes would be companies sending and receiving bills, or that conduct a large majority of time-sensitive business correspondence through First Class mail.

Spokane-based Avista Utilities sends and receives a large percentage of its customer payments via First Class mail.

Debbie Simock, a spokeswoman for the power company, says all of Avista's mail is designated First Class, and that while received mail isn't tracked, Avista sends about 5 million pieces a year.

Simock says that Avista contracts with TransCentra, a Norcross, Ga.-based mailing services company, to process and mail all of its customer bills. Those bills are sent from a TransCentra facility in Des Moines, Iowa, but payments are returned to the utility's Spokane headquarters, at 1411 E. Mission, she says.

"We are working with TransCentra—they are one of the largest customers of the Postal Service—to monitor the status of this proposal by the Postal Service to change the services," Simock says.

She says that if Avista customers are concerned about their payments making it on time to the company's headquarters, they might consider using its electronic payment service. About one-fifth of Avista's customers already use this service, she adds.

On the other hand, some Spokane-area businesses that regularly send or receive high volumes of mail aren't expecting to be affected as much by the changes to First Class mail.

Tami Winkoski, distribution manager for Target Media Northwest, a printing and mailing services company in Airway Heights, at 13026 W. McFarlane, says the business sends out between 50,000 and 180,000 pieces of mail a week.

About 10 percent of Target Media's mail is designated First Class, Winkoski says, while the remaining 90 percent is classified as standard mail, which takes between three and seven days to be delivered, she says.

Most of the mail Target Media processes for its customers consists of grocery store sales flyers, monthly newsletters, and newspapers, she says.

Winkoski says she doesn't anticipate much, if any, impact on the mail Target Media sends to addresses in the Spokane-Coeur d'Alene area, but because of the proposed consolidation of the Postal Service's sorting facilities across the U.S., she says mail going farther could take longer to get to its destination.

"We're not alarming any customers because it won't change a whole lot; it depends on what they're mailing," she says.