Lawmakers: Mail service shows signs of improvement, but more work to be done

(The Center Square) — Months after public outcries prompted a facility audit and heated criticism from Virginia’s congressional members, the U.S. Postal Service’s Richmond Processing and Distribution Center is making some progress.

Virginia Sens. Tim Kaine and Mark Warner and several representatives met with the postmaster general on Wednesday and learned the center had made further improvements since the first quarter, during which its on-time delivery rate increased from 66% to 77.4%. However, the USPS goal is 93%.

“While we are glad to see some gains in the on-time delivery rate in Virginia, there’s much more work to do. We will continue to press for increased transparency, greater engagement with the public, and a higher standard of service for our communities across Virginia,” the members said in a joint statement.

The center was the nation’s first attempt at consolidating local USPS facilities into larger regional sorting and delivery hubs. It was part of a plan by Postmaster General Louis DeJoy to modernize the postal service and stem its financial hemorrhaging.

But the consolidation was poorly executed, leading to weeks-long mail delays and, in some cases, mail that was simply never recovered. In one now well-known instance, hundreds of veterans mailed colon cancer screening tests to a medical center only to learn that many of them had expired in the mail.

The audit report released in May showed the center was understaffed, adequate training wasn’t provided for the adoption of all of the new changes, employees were absent, and plant leadership instability and glitches with new processing equipment were among the consolidation challenges.

Richmond isn’t the only place that has struggled in its “Delivering for America” transformation. Other locations have experienced significant complications, to the point where the Postal Regulatory Commission has recommended that USPS temporarily refrain from further reforms.