WASHINGTON – U.S. Senators Claire McCaskill of Missouri and Heidi Heitkamp of North Dakota are calling for the United States Postal Service (USPS) to take immediate action after the USPS Inspector General found that serious management problems potentially contributed to an estimated 2 billion pieces of delayed mail being inaccurately reported as delivered on time.
“For too many Missourians, delayed mail could mean missing a dose of a medication or losing out on a contract because a small business couldn’t get shipments on time,” said McCaskill, the top-ranking Democrat on the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee. “Falsely marking mail as delivered when it hasn’t been is unacceptable, and USPS needs to take action now to improve their customer service in Missouri and across the country.”
“The Postal Service is integral to rural communities and our way of doing business – but when an estimated two billion pieces of mail were delayed over the course of a year, that lack of accountability is hurting the ability of Americans who depend on the Postal Service over the long term. We need to change that – and we need immediate results,” said Heitkamp. “For years, I’ve been working to address mail service challenges in North Dakota by hearing from hundreds of North Dakotans firsthand through my Fix My Mail initiative. And it’s why I’ll keep working to address those challenges to restore exemplary service and accountability at the Postal Service, just as we’re pushing for today, so rural America can count on the Postal Service for generations to come.”
The USPS Office of the Inspector General found last month that pieces of mail were processed after the established cut-off time and inappropriately marked as delivered due to a of lack of management training and oversight. In a letter to the Postmaster General, McCaskill and Heitkamp wrote, “The mail continues to be a vital lifeline in rural America and the dependence on this service as a way to deliver goods as well as connect individuals, communities, and businesses demands that it be a reliable and accurate mode of delivery.” They also requested that USPS follow the Inspector General’s recommendation to “develop and implement formal training requirements at [Processing and Distribution Centers].”
Read the letter from McCaskill and Heitkamp to the Postmaster General HERE.
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