Recent budget cuts at UC Davis have reduced mail delivery provided by the Mail Division on campus.
Historically, UC Davis scholastic and administrative departments have always had daily mail services. However, due to recent budget cuts, mail service will be provided either two or three times per week, based on the geography of departments.
“It is one of the many areas where funding has gone away, we cannot afford to do business as usual,” said Phillip Lacey, assistant director of the material management office. “There were very few options; one cannot cover the same amount of territory daily with reduced people and vehicles.”
The mail service was one of various departments that faced budget reductions. Beginning Aug. 1, funding was reduced by 33 percent, a total of $180,000, Lacey said. Student Housing, the Chancellor’s Office and the Tri Co-ops are among the groups that face mail delivery reduction.
There are no new additional costs to customers, Lacey said.
“Any department, whether they are large or small, that are dependent on mail for business and work flow have been affected by this reduction,” Lacey said.
Departments such as the Office of the University Registrar have been reduced to receiving mail three times a week instead of daily mail, said Ali Cordone, assistant registrar.
“We cannot see any negative effects at this time,” Cordone said. “We will not change student delivery service at all.”
One change that the Office of the University Registrar has instated is that they will allow rush delivery service for transcripts. Official transcripts will now be taken to same business day delivery service at 2 p.m. outside of Mrak Hall, Cordone said.
“We were not affected greatly by this reduced mail service,” said Lesley Byrns, MSO of the social sciences department. “Almost everything done by the department is done by electronic mail now.”
The feedback to the reduced mail service has been broad. Departments have voiced concerns of basic impacts of delayed incoming mail for research, grants, gifts, etc., Lacey said.
“We have not received any ‘high fives’ from cutting mail services,” Lacey said.
Due to this reduction, several new collection boxes will be installed on campus. Outgoing interoffice mail and U.S. mail in the new boxes will be collected on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays at 2 p.m. for same business day processing, according to the UC Davis Directive #11-002.
Departments are encouraged to use electronic documents whenever possible.
“If there was going to be a [budget] cut, this was not a bad one,” Byrns said. “Everything was going in the direction of electronic mail service even before the reduced paper mail.”
Visit maildiv.ucdavis.edu for a full list of the new delivery schedule.
ALICIA KINDRED can be reached at campus@theaggie.org.
