KANSAS CITY, Mo. – After months of complaints regarding mail services throughout the metro, locally elected officials announced they have joined forces across party lines to combat delivery delays and find solutions to the U.S. Postal Service’s growing problems.
According to a news release, “U.S. Representatives Emanuel Cleaver II (D-MO-05), Jake LaTurner (R-KS-02), Sharice Davids (D-KS-03), Mark Alford (R-MO-04) and Sam Graves (R-MO-06) united in a bipartisan effort to address mail delivery delays in the Kansas City area.”
The group of elected officials has called on USPS Postmaster General Louis Dejoy to follow through with solutions to problems identified in an audit.
The audit investigated three Kansas City, Missouri, and Kansas City, Kansas locations in June: Hickman Mills Post Office, Robert L. Roberts Post Office and Shawnee Mission Post Office.
“My mail is late all the time at the PO box,” said Gary Roberts, who uses the South Troost Post Office in Kansas City, Missouri. “I got something from Social Security on the 25th, but I didn’t get it in my PO box until the 29th, and it was due on the 30th, so what do you think they did to me? They suspended my money.”
The audit aimed to evaluate the efficiency of delivery operations and property conditions at the processing and distribution Centers. And after investigations were complete, problems were found in four of these five key areas:
Mail clearance times
Delayed mail
Late/canceled/extra outbound trips
Dock scanning
Security of registry items
DeJoy determined that many of the postal service’s issues stem from employee shortages and inadequate management. It was reported that employees would sometimes not show up to work and that workplaces lacked a level of oversight from supervisors and managers.
“I got one (piece of mail) this last month from February,” said Mary Kline, who uses the South Troost Postal Office.
Many residents across the area are not getting their mail on time, and sometimes, they’re not getting it at all.
The audit also found safety concerns regarding trucks and trailers parked at the docks without wheel chocks, preventing them from rolling away.
Drivers were also not securing trailer doors at all times, leading different Midwest division directors to get involved.
On May 14, more than 30,000 delayed mail pieces were found at the Robert L. Roberts station in Kansas City, Kansas. On the same day, more than 1,600 delayed pieces of mail were identified at the Hickman Mills Post Office.
In both cases, management did not accurately report the mail as undelivered.
“The findings in these audits and the recommendations are very serious things,” said Sharice Davids (D-KS-03). “Making sure that our scanning equipment is working, making sure that we’re properly staffed and making sure that the management practices are in place.”
“Something is wrong at the highest levels and we’re not going to be able to fix it by fussing at a postal worker. Somebody who’s out in this in the snow and rain, and condemning them if the mail is not delivered on time,” said Representative Emanuel Cleaver (D-MO-05).
According to a news release, Kansas City has “some for the nation’s slowest mail service in the nation.” This has led these local officials to call upon USPS to implement the Office of the Inspector General’s solutions.
“It is unacceptable that these facilities have fallen and are failing to keep up with the USPS standard of service,” the representatives said. “We wholeheartedly urge the leadership of the postal service to roll out the recommendations of the USPS Office of the Inspector General immediately to improve the service of the USPS in the Kansas City Metro area for our constituents.”
