HELENA – The U.S. Postal Service plans on studying dozens of Montana post offices to see if they should remain open, be closed or contracted to a third party.
The agency announced Tuesday it was considering closing 10 percent of its retail outlets, and planned to study 3,753 local offices, branches and stations. The Postal Service lost $8 billion last year due to declining volume.
In Montana, the Postal Service plans to study the need for 85 smaller post offices. People served by those offices will have 60 days to file comments. Closure decisions can be appealed to the Postal Regulatory Commission.
The agency says many of the stations it closes will be replaced by Village Post Offices in which postal services are offered in local stores, libraries or government offices.