Audit finds U.S. Postal Service delivery to Colorado mountain towns lagging due to staffing issues, mishandling of mail
The cost of living in the Colorado Rocky Mountains increased since 2019 but the audit found the U.S. Postal Service has not increased wages to match
U.S. Postal Service Office of Inspector General/Courtesy photo
An audit of U.S. Postal Service delivery and customer service found residents of Colorado mountain towns experienced significantly lower on-time performance, especially for package deliveries, than the rest of the state and nation.
The audit published on Tuesday, Dec. 5, by the U.S. Postal Service’s Office of Inspector General was initiated after customers, local leaders, and lawmakers have called attention to postal issues across the Western Slope in recent years.
“Mail and package delivery is especially critical to residents and businesses of more remote locations, such as Colorado’s mountain towns, who have fewer options to receive medications, financial documents, and packages,” the audit states.
From Silverthorne to Steamboat Springs, the issues with customers receiving their mail on time grew so acute in some mountain towns last winter that several local governments publicly discussed legal action against the U.S. Postal Service. Some mountain town residents at the time reported issues accessing medications and important bills through the mail since packages and letters would show up weeks or months late.
Colorado’s federal representatives also got involved. Last February, with U.S. Rep. Joe Neguse expressed “deep concern” over U.S. Postal Service mismanagement and implored the agency to take action to solve it.
The audit identifies hiring and retention of employees to be the biggest challenge for the U.S. Postal Service facilities in Colorado mountain towns. But it also notes deficiencies with mail and package handling, transportation schedules, and facility constraints.
A lack of management oversight, communication, and insufficiently trained postmasters also contributed, in part, to the lower service performance and customer service, according to the audit, which outlines 10 specific recommendations for improvement.
Neguse, whose district includes Summit County, Steamboat Springs, and Boulder, on Wednesday called on the U.S. Postal Service to implement those recommendations outlined in the audit.
“Notwithstanding the herculean efforts of front-line postal workers at these locations,” he said, “the report makes clear that these rural mountain communities are not receiving a level of service even close to what the agency is required to provide.”
Struggles with staffing
The rising cost of living, especially housing, as well as less competitive wages than other local employers has contributed to the U.S. Postal Service’s difficulty with hiring and retaining personnel in Colorado mountain towns, the audit found.
Of the 13 post offices the audit team visited and observed, 12 were reportedly short staffed between October 2022 and July 2023. For that entire time period, post offices in Aspen, Buena Vista, and Conifer had more than 25% of their career carrier positions vacant, the audit found. Meanwhile, clerks at the Dillon Post Office were reportedly understaffed by more than 50% for that entire nine-month stretch.
But even when positions were filled, almost all of the postal facilities struggled to retain personnel, especially in the first three months of new employees’ tenure, according to the audit.
At the Buena Vista Post Office, 78% of employees turned over in fiscal year 2022, and 75% of employees turned over from first 9 months of fiscal year 2023, the audit states. Meanwhile, 75% of employees turned over at the Dillon Post Office in fiscal year 2022, while Steamboat Springs saw a 40% employee turnover from October 2022 to July 2023, according to the audit.
On average across all of the facilities observed, 15% of employees left voluntarily in the first 9 months of fiscal year 2023, the audit states.
Since 2019, the cost of living in Colorado has increased significantly, and while competing employers have increased their hourly pay in the region, the Postal Service’s hourly wage has remained largely unchanged, the audit found.
The Postal Service has a policy allowing for increases in pay for cost-of-living adjustments based on local conditions, but the facilities in Colorado mountain towns are not receiving these pay adjustments, according to the audit.
“Personnel at these facilities also stated how stressful the environment is due to workload, long hours, high tensions, and inability to meet customers’ needs,” the audit states.
To offset hiring and retention challenges last year, the Postal Service temporarily transferred personnel from other facilities to help supplement operations. That, however, came at an added cost, the audit notes.
The Postal Service estimated it paid $178,000 for per diem, mileage, and hotel expenses between Jan. 1 to July 31 to provide employees to understaffed facilities in Colorado, the audit states.
On the staffing front, the audit recommends that the U.S. Postal Service analyze the work environment impacts that affect hiring and retention at these postal facilities then create a plan to overcome those impacts and explore the feasibility of increasing pay in Colorado mountain towns.
Mail Mishandled
Mishandling of mail and packages also resulted in significant delays, incorrect returns and inaccurate tracking for the U.S. Postal Service’s customers in Colorado mountain towns, the audit found.
At Steamboat Springs, for example, the audit team found contracted mail carriers placed 238 packages in the undeliverable area, many of which were being incorrectly returned to sender due to improper handling, the audit states.
At nine of the postal facilities, the audit team reportedly sampled a total of 246 packages that had arrived a day earlier. Of those, 92 — more than a third — had improper scans, such as being scanned as delivered to a P.O. Box when that was not the addressed delivery point, having multiple delivery scans more than one day apart, being scanned more than a mile away from the delivery point as an attempted delivery or being scanned as an attempted delivery while still at the postal facility, the audit states.
Those improper scans caused inaccurate delayed mail counts and, in turn, led district management to be unaware of potential issues, according to the audit.
At the Vail Post Office, pallets of packages from a large e-commerce company were not scanned when they arrived, as required, the audit found. Failing to scan the mail pieces upon arrival at the post office provided customers with inaccurate tracking information and falsely identified where the delay occurred, the audit states.
“Improper handling of mail and packages resulted in delays and misinformation for customers,” the audit states. “Delayed mail and inaccurate tracking can impact the Postal Service’s reputation and brand.”
The audit recommends the U.S. Postal Service establish a program to monitor package handling, take corrective action at underperforming facilities, require any employee fulfilling a postmaster role to take the formal Postmaster Essentials training course, include on-the-job training at post offices and instruct local management in Colorado mountain-town postal facilities to enter delayed mail in reporting systems.
Mail delays also stemmed from misalignments of transportation schedules, the audit found. For example, trucks reportedly departed from post offices with collection mail before all of the carriers returned with their collection mail.
Overall, the audit team found that 19% of all transportation trips to the 13 post offices were late between October 2022 and July 2023, according to the audit. The transportation issues are due, in part, to inadequate management oversight and a lack of communication, the audit states.
Noting that most of the audited post offices were built prior to 2000, the audit also mentioned that some of them may not be prepared to handle the current package volume and meet delivery standards, especially during peak season.
U.S. Postal Service Communications Specialist James Boxrud noted that the audit states that Postal Service management “generally agreed with the findings.” He did not provide any further comment.
Colorado U.S. Senators Michael Bennet and John Hickenlooper as well as the state’s U.S. Representatives Brittany Pettersen and Neguse released a joint statement, calling on the Postal Service to implement recommendations outlined in the audit, such as increasing pay for personnel in the mountain towns.
“We are pleased to see the USPS Office of Inspector General heed our call to address the root causes of the poor mail service in our mountain towns,” the statement says. “We urge USPS to swiftly implement the report’s recommendations and will work with them to ensure they do so.”
This story is from SummitDaily.com.
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