Post offices in Conger, Freeborn, Hayward and Twin Lakes in Freeborn County face potential closure under an announcement made Tuesday by the United States Postal Service.

The financially-troubled agency said it will study the four local offices, in addition to 3,649 other offices, branches and stations across the country, for possible closure. But many of those may be replaced by Village Post Offices in which postal services are offered in local stores, libraries or government offices.

“It’s no secret that the Postal Service is looking to change the way we do a lot of things,” Postmaster General Patrick Donahoe said at a briefing. “We do feel that we are still relevant to the American public and the economy, but we have to make some tough choices.”

Judy Jensen, officer in charge at the Freeborn post office, said she hadn’t heard the announcement as of Tuesday afternoon, but knew the Postal Service was expected to make a big announcement.

“I was always told our post office wouldn’t be closed,” Jensen said. “People aren’t going to be happy because I don’t know where they would get their mail.”

She questioned whether Freeborn would be included on a mail route if the office was closed.

People also come to the Freeborn post office to purchase stamps and send packages.

“We’re a full-service post office,” Jensen said.

Currently the post office operates 31,871 retail outlets across the country, down from 38,000 a decade ago. However, in recent years business has declined sharply as first-class mail moved to the Internet. In addition, the recession resulted in a decline in advertising mail, and the agency lost $8 billion last year.

Most of the offices that face review are in rural areas and have low volumes of business. As many as 3,000 post offices have only two hours of business a day even though they are open longer, said postal vice president Dean Granholm.

Coming under review doesn’t necessarily mean an office will close. The post office announced in January it was reviewing 1,400 offices for closing. So far 280 have been closed and 200 have finished the review process and will remain open.

Once an office is selected for a review, people served by that office will have 60 days to file their comments. If an office is to be closed, they will be able to appeal to the independent Postal Regulatory Commission.

“Today’s announcement is a step in the right direction. There are, however, many difficult decisions ahead that must be made to improve operations, reduce costs, and return the Postal Service to financial solvency,” said Rep. Darrell Issa, R-Calif., chairman of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, which has jurisdiction over the Postal Service.

The post office “must consolidate facilities and streamline operations in the way that countless private sector companies have done to remain viable in the face of new markets, new technology and changing customer needs,” said Issa.

Officials said the vast majority of sales in post offices are stamp purchases, and that can easily be handled at the new Village Post Offices. In addition, those offices would accept flat-rate packages and some could provide post office box service. For passports or other more complex services customers would have to go to a remaining regular post office.

Already some 70,000 locations such as supermarkets and department stores sell stamps.

Over the last four years the Postal Service, which does not receive tax funds for its operations, has cut its staff by about 130,000 and reduced costs by $12 billion in an effort to cope with the loss of first class mail to the Internet and the decline in advertising mail caused by the recession. For example, about half of all bill payments are made by Internet now, up from 5 percent a decade ago.

Postal officials have also sought permission from Congress to reduce mail delivery to five-days-a-week and to ease the requirement that they pay $5.5 billion annually into a fund to pre-pay future retiree medical benefits.

Without the $5.5 billion annual pre-payment — which is not required of any other government agency — the post office would have made a profit over the past four years. However, because of the complex way federal finances are structured, the payment is counted as income to the government and eliminating it would make the federal deficit appear to be $5.5 billion larger.

The agency has also suspended payments into its pension fund and eliminated bonuses and performance awards for managers and executives.

— The Associated Press contributed to this story