The United States Postal Service plans to consolidate seven mail processing centers in Kansas to reduce costs including the one here in Hutchinson.

The Postal Service said in a news release Thursday that processing centers in other Kansas cities will also be effected including Hays, Salina and Dodge City. Those cities along with and Hutchinson will be consolidated with the processing and distribution center in Wichita.

The Liberal processing center will be moved to Amarillo, Texas; the processing center in Topeka will be consolidated with one in Kansas City, Mo., and the Colby processing
center operations will move to North Platte, Neb.

Postal Officials say these changes are a necessary part of a larger comprehensive plan developed by the Postal Service to reduce operating costs by 20-billion by 2015 and return the organization to profitability.

No specific dates have been set for the consolidation. Once the centers are consolidated, mail processing work will end but retail and business activity at the seven centers will continue.

Since 2006, First-Class Mail volume has rapidly declined, leaving a mail mix that generates far less revenue than it costs to sustain postal operations. The dramatic decline in mail volume has resulted in an enormous amount of excess capacity within the network, creating significant opportunity for consolidation.

U-S Postal Officials say consolidating the mail processing center here in Hutchinson as well as other in the area to Wichita would save hundreds of thousands of dollars. However, it will cost about nine jobs, eight of those would be line workers, and one would be management. Wichita, in turn would pick up about 10-positions.

Services at the local post office won’t change, but it may take some mail longer to get to it’s destination.