The price of stamps increased to 45 cents Sunday, but this won't start skeleton to shut the Augusta letter estimate core at the city's principal post office branch.
The enlarge will assimilate is to taking flight cost of business, mentioned Stephen Seewoester, the U.S. Postal Service orator for Augusta, Macon and south Georgia.
"Things have vanished up. We use a lot of gasoline. Expenses have vanished up, so this is a slight rate enlarge that you do from time to time," Seewoester said. "We can elevate the price of stamps fomed on the Consumer Price Index. Packages are market-based, formed on what competitors are charging."
Consumers will moreover pay more for other Postal Service mailing and shipping services. However, customers who purchased Forever Stamps before the enlarge can use them without wanting extra postage, Seewoester said.
Sandra Burke, an worker at Colon Rectal Surgery Associates PC, mentioned her office forgot about the price change.
"We hammered all of our letter yesterday, sent it out and it came correct back to us wanting more stamps," she said.
The office had mailed out 71 envelopes with metered postage of 44 cents on Monday. Burke paid for a few books of 1-cent stamps Tuesday at Augusta's principal post office on Eighth Street to make up the disparity in postage.
Ashley Gray, of Aiken, moreover unknowingly of the price change, visited the downtown post office on Tuesday to buy a book of Forever Stamps.
Gray mentioned she often uses the Postal Service to send bills, cards and even letters. She doesn't thoughts the enlarge in price.
"It's fine. It doesn't worry me," Gray said.
Still, the enlarge is not sufficient to discard the large cuts programmed by the Postal Service. The cash-strapped service voiced skeleton in 2011 to make cuts to first-class letter this spring, removing the luck for hammered letters to arrive the next day.
In addition, the group has skeleton to shut about half of its scarcely 500 letter estimate centers opposite the cuntry, inclusive the Augusta letter estimate center. The Postal Service moreover skeleton to shut about 3,700 local post offices, putting rounded off 100,000 employees out of work.
The shutting date of the letter estimate centers and post offices has been delayed.
"We have a holdover on it correct right away that you wouldn't make any changes until May 15," Seewoester said.