Pending plans that could have seen one of the area’s Post Office locations closed, may be altered in enough fashion to keep the outlet open – with reduced hours.

The Clinton County News first reported in August of 2011 of a study being conducted by the United States Postal Service to close some 130 small outlets in Kentucky alone, including the Alpha Post Office, located just across the Clinton and Wayne County boundaries.

The Alpha Post Office, with the 42603 ZIP Code, is located on the Old Happy Top Road.

Facing huge deficits and possible bankruptcy, the USPS, in an effort to reduce spending and costs, was looking to close smaller Post Office outlets across the nation, including the Alpha Post Office location.

However, under a new plan released recently, Alpha, and a host of other locations, would remain open, but with reduced hours – in the case of this outlet, one-half of what local patrons are now accustomed to.

In an article that appeared last week in the postalnews.com online publication, the new plan was outlined in it’s May 9 edition, noting that the new strategy could “keep the nation’s smallest Post Offices open for business, while providing a framework to achieve significant cost savings as part of the plan to return the organization to financial stability.”

Alpha’s current window hours provide service between the hours of 8:15 a.m. until 12:15 p.m., Monday through Saturday.

The new proposal would reduce that four-hour period by one-half, to two hours per day, although the likely time-frame for those two hours was not given.

Instead, the proposal indicated that each post office slated for window hour reductions, would see the service times being adjusted in a slot that would best fit the needs of the area residents using the facility.

Access to the post office lobby and to the P.O. Boxes inside would not be affected by the proposed window hour reduction, and the plan would allow the “ZIP Code and community identity” to be retained, according to the announcement.

In the article last August, it was reported that at that time, the Alpha Post Office had between 50 and 60 P. O. Boxes serving customers in both Clinton and Wayne County, in addition to the other services the outlet provides residents in the immediate area who use the facility on a regular basis.

According to the USPS announcement, the new strategy would be implemented over a two-year period, and would not be completed until September, 2014.

When fully implemented, the change is expected to result in an estimated savings for the USPS of a half-billion dollars annually.

The Alpha Post Office was one of 3,653 locations across the nation that was being looked at for closure. Currently, the USPS operates nearly 32,000 outlets across the nation.

In 2010, the Postal Service reported losses of about $8 billion and has an annual revenue of more than $65 billion.