Twelve to 15,000 pieces of mail are handled by the Florida State University campus post office daily, according to the post office’s Web site, http://printing.fsu.edu.
This, however, is not done before passing through another set of hands at Florida State University’s Printing and Mailing Center at 800 W. Madison St.
“FAMU has been using a service provided by the FSU Printing and Mailing Center to presort mail in order to receive discounts from the U.S. Postal Service for at least the last three years,” said Jennifer Bowers, assistant director of Business Services for FSU Printing, Mailing and Postal Services.
Bowers, who has been working with this FSU department for only three years, said she does not know how long before she came to work there that FAMU started using their services.
Currently, FAMU postal service takes all first-class, letter size mail to the FSU Printing and Mailing Center to a presort mail machine to have the mail sorted by the first three digits of ZIP codes.
According to the FSU Printing and Mailing Services Web site, after being sorted, the mail is put in trays of like ZIP codes then delivered to the U.S. Postage Service acceptance unit.
“Presorting is the final sortation of mail before it goes to the individual U.S. post offices around the country,” Bowers said. “We essentially do what the post office would do, (but now) they don’t have to handle incoming mail from us.”
Because the mail is already presorted when delivered to the U.S. Postal Service, the University receives a 26.7 cents discount on postal rates. The presorted mail service also provides a faster delivery time.
According the FSU Printing and Mailing Web site, FSU charges the University four cents per piece of mail that is sorted using its machine as well as a $25 set up fee. instead of paying 37 cents per piece of mail, FAMU is charged 10.3 cents per piece of mail since their mail arrives to the post office already sorted,” said Bill Messervy, mailing requirement clerk for the U.S. Postal Service in Tallahassee.
“FAMU receives this discount because their mail is considered to be non-profit bulk mail,” Messervy said.
Other state agencies and schools in the Tallahassee area also take advantage of this service to save money.
Often these groups opt to use FSU’s services because they cannot afford to do it themselves.
“The cost of the equipment makes it prohibitive for a small mail center to do [it] in-house,” Bowers said.
According to the center’s Web site, it also offers other services such as including folding and inserting mail into envelopes, affixing postage, labeling mail and sealing articles of mail at the facility.
These services are usually used for bulk mail from the local universities and state agencies.
Michael Smith, director of auxiliary services and Marcus Bryant, FAMU director of postal services, could not be reached to comment on whether the University has plans of purchasing sorting machine equipment.
Contact Megan Brown at meganjbrown25@hotmail.com.