Starting this spring, the U.S. Postal Service is undergoing major changes on both a state and local level, and students such as Publiski might notice.

Processing operations in Lansing and other Michigan cities could be consolidated to a centralized location as early as May this year to be more cost-effective as the service faces hard financial times, USPS spokeswoman Sabrina Todd said.

The post office location in the Union also faces closure, but only temporarily and for a different reason.

Operations will cease April 30 in the wake of extensive construction at the facility and likely will reopen before students return for the fall semester, USPS Auxiliary Resources Communication Manager Kat Cooper said.

The new layout in the Union will have postal services available to students in a planned welcome center at the facility, Cooper said, with all mail services intact except for the P.O. Boxes currently
available.

“Students can still do everything right there at the welcome center,” Cooper said. “It’s something the building has needed for a long time.”

Although mail services still will be available to students in an on-campus location, the time it takes for mail to get out of East Lansing could get longer with the onset of processing changes, Todd said.

Because the mail now will have to go to a different city to be processed before it is sent on to its destination, wait time on some packages could take up to a day longer, Todd
said.

The new system is set to go into motion mid-May. Todd said USPS also is brainstorming long-term ways to fix the financial woes of the mail system, such as moving to a five-day delivery period.

The postal service suffered about $3.3 billion in net losses in October, November and December 2011.

Publiski, who said she sends personal letters or birthday cards through the mail about once a month, said the changes to USPS on a state level could be beneficial in saving the service money and remind people of the amenities USPS provides.

“It’ll help make people realize how much they do still use the postal service,” Publiski said.

Communication senior Bailee Beachy said a revamped USPS location at the Union is useful, but might not be effective in the long term at getting more people to send mail unless the organization makes extensive changes to its current activity.

“I consider (letter writing) a classical thing,” Beachy said, pausing to reconsider stamp placement as she prepared to send paper mail for the first time in nearly a year.

“A lot of people just don’t do it anymore … I don’t see how a new facility could make too much of a difference.”