After boldly predicting that it would at least break even in 2023, the U.S. Postal Service (USPS) lost $6.5 billion. So it should come as no surprise that the USPS is looking at changing the way it delivers mail in 2024. Unfortunately, for some rural communities, those changes could drastically affect the speed at which they receive their mail.
In a strategic move called “Delivering to America,” the $40 billion plan aims to upgrade and improve USPS processing, transportation, and delivery. However, some of those upgrades aren’t going over well with several U.S. rural communities.
Some of the more controversial decisions include moving the Iron Mountain Processing Center in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula 100 miles away to Green Bay, Wisconsin; the Grand Junction, Colorado, processing center 244 miles away to Denver; and the Sioux Falls, South Dakota, facility 184 miles away to Omaha, Nebraska.
Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee Chairman Sen. Gary Peters (D-Mich.), recently held an oversight hearing that he convened in Iron Mountain to examine the changes and the potential effects on mail delivery performance. In a written statement, he vowed to push for the Postal Service Board of Governors to request an advisory opinion from the Postal Regulatory Commission that will comprehensively study the potential effects of these changes.
“I have called on the Postal Service to pause these changes until it can show that they won’t undermine the agency’s primary responsibility, to provide timely and reliable delivery to every community,” he said in a statement. “Before moving forward, the Postal Service must study the locations that have been altered so far, investigate the root causes of disruptions, restore normal service, and understand the long-term implications of this plan.”
Mr. Peters didn’t respond to a request to discuss the plan with The Epoch Times.
Additional “Delivering for America” strategies include the USPS ending the practice of sending afternoon trucks to some rural post offices to pick up outgoing mail. Instead, only morning mail would be picked up for delivery.
Joseph Stevens, a member of the Dickinson County (Michigan) Board of Commissioners, which includes Iron Mountain, told The Epoch Times that mail in the area is already slow. He worries that moving the local processing center to Green Bay will put some residents at risk.
“If they move it to Green Bay, it will take a few more days to get mail. I’m concerned about medicine and prescriptions getting to people on time and even water treatment samples need to be sent in a day for testing water at our parks,” he said.
“It’s always a concern when they do these things and they don’t tell you until after they’re done. I’m guessing, though, with the [implementation] delay, we probably won’t see these changes made until after the [Presidential] election.”
Elsewhere across the country, the USPS has been under fire for mail delays in some rural areas, including the town of Bemidji, Minnesota, and its 14,000 residents. An audit report from the USPS inspector general late last year on those postal operations found that nearly 79,000 mail pieces were delayed at the facility for three days in the mid-December Christmas rush.
The rural mail carriers attached to the Bemidji Post Office claimed that they were short-staffed and unable to perform their jobs, especially after being forced to work 12-hour shifts, while also delivering packages for Amazon.
The inspector general report blamed USPS headquarters management for not adequately planning for increased staff, training, and resources or for notifying the facility about the sudden increase in volume expected, as well as failing to accurately report the delayed mail.
The report states in part: “On the morning of December 12, 2023, we visited the Bemidji Post Office and found delayed letters and flats. These issues occurred because headquarters management did not have a comprehensive plan to assess resources at the Bemidji Post Office before adding additional package volume to its delivery operations.”
Karen Schaar, a local real estate company executive secretary who has lived in Bemidji for more than 35 years, told The Epoch Times that delivery problems started four years ago. She said that’s when a new administrator entered the Bemidji post office and fired 26 people.
“It’s been a problem here since 2020. The fact my letters now go from Bemidji to Grand Forks and then to West Fargo [North Dakota] is expensive,” she said.
The frustration has caused Ms. Schaar to forgo licking stamps and instead put cards to her family in a priority flat-rate envelope.
One of her biggest complaints is that she never knows when the mail will come.
“It got to be a standing joke here in our neighborhood when we’d ask others if they got their mail today,” Ms. Schaar said. “Sometimes, we don’t get anything and then, we’ll get two deliveries the following day. I’ll sometimes get a package at 9 a.m. and then another later on the same day. I’ll call that dysfunction. If I have something important to mail, I won’t send it from my mailbox anymore. Instead, I’ll drive into town and mail it from the post office.”
She noted that she may have to employ another option soon.
“I’ll probably have to go get a UPS P.O. box,” Ms. Schaar said.
