The latest move in a U.S. Postal Service plan to change the way it processes and delivers mail is taking aim at the frequency of pickups and deliveries for rural customers, a change that could hurt the ability of electric cooperatives to communicate with their members.
The proposed changes would intensify pressure on co-ops, which have already faced sharp postage rate increases in recent years that have raised costs to ship their magazines, electric bills and other mail to members.
The proposal “is a travesty of solutions for the agency’s self-inflicted financial troubles, only exacerbated by the unprecedented rate hikes of the past three years,” said Cally Peterson, editor of North Dakota Living, the member magazine for the North Dakota Association of Rural Electric Cooperatives.
“If rural mail service continues to decline—and it will under this new proposal—electric cooperatives will have to take a hard look at how we reach our members,” Peterson said. “A functioning and effective rural mail service is critical to how electric cooperatives communicate with member-owners.”
