ATLANTA — A U.S. Senate committee plans to discuss oversight of the United States Postal Service when it convenes Tuesday.
While details are limited when it comes to the April 16 hearing, the website for the U.S. Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs committee indicates lawmakers are calling for Postmaster General Louis DeJoy to provide testimony, along with other key leaders charged with overseeing USPS.
The event comes as complaints of mail delays in major metropolitan areas, including Atlanta, Houston and Richmond, continue. The aforementioned cities have been at the forefront of the Postmaster General's evolving rollout of the "Delivering for America" plan, a 10-year, billion-dollar effort to streamline postal operations and save money.
Sen. Jon Ossoff, among the lawmakers who've demanded answers about the mail delays plaguing metro Atlanta, serves on the Senate's Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs committee. Ossoff and other members of the Georgia Congressional delegation have been speaking out on delays for weeks, the problems believed to be attributed to the launch of metro Atlanta's new Regional Process & Distribution Center, which officially opened on Feb. 24 in Palmetto.
"These RP&DC's are supposed to be these regional processing centers that we're going to take in mail from a wide regional area to bring it in under one umbrella," Ivan Butts, President of the National Association of Postal Supervisors, told 11Alive. "Process [mail] in that network environment and then truck it to other regional processing centers where it would be sorted out downstream to local processing centers and then ultimately to sorting distribution centers."
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But since the Palmetto facility opened, disruptions have spiked.
11Alive has received more than 2,000 viewer messages asking for answers and help with tracking packages and mail ranging from absentee ballots and tax documents to critical prescription medication and travel documents.
While a spokesperson for USPS maintains that operations are improving, the postal service has yet to provide clarification on the root causes of the delays or any answers to 11Alive's questions about operations at the facility or when customers can expect operations to return to normal.
Many Congressmembers tell 11Alive they, too, are awaiting a response to inquires.
Butts, meanwhile, shared his association's concerns about Palmetto and the other RP&DCs like in Richmond, namely around the ability of USPS to staff these new mega processing centers.
"You almost have to overstaff these operations until you can level set them and know what the resources you need to be able to go in there day in and day out and process mail," he shared, adding that inside employees are doing everything they can to "process America's mail."
"I think really the ways that our supervisors are really kind of heads down and trying to do what do everything they can do," he shared, noting the challenges of being part of the new facility. "And I thank them for that."
"Now what we do," Butts continued. "We see the trends, we look at the data. If you follow the data, the data tells the whole story."
According to the USPS' public dashboard, which measures service performance by zip code, on-time delivery of First-class mail in Georgia dropped in mid-February as the Palmetto facility launched. While Georgia's numbers had previously hovered around 80 percent of on-time delivery at the beginning of 2024, the week of Feb. 24 shows on-time rates taking a dive.
Only 36% of First-Class mail was delivered on time in mid-March. Narrowing the data further to First-Class single-piece letters, and the numbers are more grim, hitting a low of 25% the week of March 9.
While numbers for March 23, the most recent week data is available, show rates ticking upwards, Georgia's service still is markedly low compared to the USPS' goal to deliver at least 95% of mail and packages on time.
11Alive once again reached out to the USPS for comment on the latest numbers as well as the forthcoming hearing but has not yet received a response.
"I think we need to start seeing oversight come in and ask the ask the real questions about 'Deliver for America' and to determine if it's the right thing to do," Butts shared, adding that the plan sounds good on payer but has yet to roll out that way.
"For our customers in Atlanta, they need to understand that these are some challenging times for the employees trying to navigate this volume of mail coming in this facility and without the full understanding of this flow and how, how it's how it's supposed to transition now," Butts he added. "But they are working diligently to try to get America's mail moving down there."
And when it comes to frustrated customers, his piece of advice is: "See something, say something."
"[Customers] need to keep reporting because the leadership of the Postal Service needs to be challenged to do it and do it correctly."