Serving the Big Horn Basin for over 100 years
Serving the Big Horn Basin for over 100 years
As part of the United States Postal Service’s (USPS) Delivering for America plan, the USPS announced that it will be moving a portion of mail processing operations from Casper to Billings, Montana.
According to a USPS press release from April 16, 2024, the changes to operations were made following an extensive review of operations and facilities, and public feedback. The press release states that, “Currently, a majority of mail is destined outside the Casper area to the rest of the world.”
The current facility in Casper is a Processing and Distribution Center. Following a $5.7 million investment into the facility, it will change into a Local Processing Center. According to the USPS Office of Inspector General, Local Processing Centers, “sort letters and flats to individual mail carrier routes in the regional area.”
According to USPS Strategic Communications representative James Boxrud, Casper will continue to process inbound mail for Wyoming and that the primary changes will be in how outgoing mail is processed.
“It’s the outgoing mail that will be processed in Billings — the vast majority of it leaves the local area as it is,” said Boxrud. “We currently sort that mail in Casper and then put it on a truck to Billings. With this change we’re simply taking out that expensive and inefficient first handling,” he said.
Once implemented, the changes in facilities will result in all outgoing mail from Worland being processed at the Billings Processing and Distribution Center first. If the mail has a destination within Wyoming, the mail will then travel from Billings to Casper to be sorted and sent out.
“It is important to know that local mail has a two-day service standard, and this mail would continue to be processed and delivered in two days,” said Boxrud.
WestPac Area Corporate Communications Manager David Rupert said that there will not be changes to local newspaper deliveries, as it does not require mail sortation. Rupert additionally said that there will not be changes to the USPS location in Worland.
According to an article written by Jordan Smith from the Casper Star Tribune, the USPS has also decided to turn Cheyenne’s Processing and Distribution Center into a Local Processing Center, and will move some operations to Denver, Colorado. Once all changes are made, Wyoming will have no processing or distribution centers, said Smith.
An implementation date for the changes has not been announced.