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The Orangeburg Post Office has rolled back its weekday postmark deadline time to 5 p.m., effective immediately.
The change, which was made official Wednesday, cuts the postmark deadline by one hour. Weekend postal collection hours will not change.
Postal officials said the change was needed to improve the efficiency and streamline the overnight mail processing and delivery.
Currently, mail collected locally is transported to Columbia, where it is processed at a central location and must be canceled or postmarked by 6 p.m. The 5 p.m. collection deadline is touted as easing that transition and ensuring a greater quantity of mail is postmarked before Columbia's 6 p.m. postmark deadline.
Orangeburg Post Office officer-in-charge Claude Dash said the transition has been ongoing, but it finalized this week.
"It will require some adjustment from some of our customers," Dash said. "But, if we have hardship cases, we will go out of the way to accommodate those extenuating cases. We are flexible."
Orangeburg attorney Ladson Beach said he was unhappy with the new hours, upset because the public was not warned in advance about the change, which he says will negatively impact his business.
"This will create problems in the delivery of legal services to our clients," Beach said. "Many times the deadlines associated with legal proceedings are based on the postmarked date. This will have a significant impact on me and my profession, and I am sure on the accounting profession as well."
Dash acknowledged the failure to properly notify the public about the change but said that most post offices have made it standard practice to stop collections after window service stops.
The Orangeburg Post Office window service officially closes at 5 p.m., and Dash said mail collections have already traditionally been accepted later than this deadline.
"We have been going above and beyond so long that people have gotten used to it," Dash said. "Now we are just trying to normalize operations."
He maintained the transition is the norm and has benefited mail delivery efficiency.
Beach said he understands the Post Office must periodically make internal changes, but he said it should not be at customers' expense.
"They have to serve the public," Beach said. "It is a tremendous imposition for us to have to leave work early to get to the post office before 5 p.m. When you start cutting probably the most critical hour of the day when people finish business ... you are cutting into the most important function of a postal service and that is the timely delivery of mail."
Dash said to better ease the deadline transition, some grace period will be allowed for customers to grow accustomed to the change.
Orangeburg County Chamber of Commerce president David Coleman said he was unaware of the change and expressed his disappointment.
"We certainly have had an excellent postal service here at the Chamber," Coleman said. "You could complete a days work and leave the office around 5 p.m. and then drop off the mail. Now there will have to be a change in schedules where businesses will have to get ready earlier and have somebody leave earlier to drop off mail. I know it would be easier to do it the other way. We will certainly miss the 6 p.m. deadline."
Post Office communications specialist Harry Spratlin noted that "stringent service standards," increasing expenses and a reduction in the most profit-making form of mail, namely first class, were among some of the reasons for the change.
"We don't receive tax subsidies on operations," Spratlin said. "Our operations are dependent on postage and postal revenue."
Spratlin also apologized about the way the transition was handled.
"The transition was made without as much notification as the policy that we normally have," Spratlin acknowledged. "We should have communicated better with the community about this change. But this all fits in with our system, I know what Claude was complying with what the district manager asked to be done, but it was a matter of not going back and referring to that policy of proper notification."
Spratlin explained that policy is to post any time changes on the collection box as a notification of any collection time changes.
"We ask the public to adjust to this and that we will work with them through this change," Spratlin said. "All in all, the system is working and works great."
In the meantime, Beach said he is going to challenge the transition.
"We can adjust to anything, but the point is, it is taking an hour out of my business day when you move the (mail) pickup," he said. "Can I adjust? Yes. Is it damaging to my business? Yes. Time is the most critical commodity we have, and they are taking it away from us."