Review of the Postal Service's Consolidation of Mail Processing Operations in the Berkeley and Oakland, California, Post Offices

The consolidation of mail processing operations in Berkeley and Oakland, California was planned in order to realize savings by machine processing mail which had been manually processed at the Berkeley office. Under the plan, Berkeley's mail will be machine sorted in the Oakland Sectional Center Facility, and the Berkeley office will continue to provide customer services and mail delivery. A six-position letter sorting machine no longer needed in Berkeley will be relocated and modified in Stockton, California, to handle a larger mail volume.

The Postal Service estimated potential savings of $630,700 a year, including a savings of $335,700 by transferring Berkeley's mail processing operations to Oakland, and a savings of $295,000 by moving the Berkeley letter sorting machine to Stockton. GAO estimated that the savings would be about $370,900 annually for processing Berkeley's mail in Oakland and $334,700 annually for moving the letter sorting machine to Stockton. However, the savings could have resulted from separate actions; in which case, the Stockton savings would not be attributable to the consolidation. The consolidation will probably have little or no impact on mail services to Berkeley because of the commitment by officials to maintain the same level of service. The consolidation prompted officials to revise mail transportation schedules to make them more efficient.