Proposed postal changes could slow down rural mail

In August, U.S. Postmaster General Louis DeJoy put Congress and others on notice that the United States Postal Service was weighing plans to eliminate some pickup times as a way to cut costs. But those plans, some said, would have a larger impact on rural residents, The Daily Yonder reports.

The plan would eliminate evening mail pickup in rural and remote areas, which could affect delivery times for areas that are more than 50 miles from a large USPS regional processing facility. Part of the USPS 10-year strategic plan to address long-standing financial, operational and service performance issues, the change would eliminate transportation costs and centralize delivery, officials said.

"The Postal Service continues to incur large net losses, our current assets are not sufficient to pay for our current liabilities, our working capital is negative, and our resources are insufficient to pay down our liabilities," the proposal filing said. "While progress has been made to date, much more work remains to be done for the Postal Service to achieve the goals of the plan and become a high-performing, financially sustainable organization."

DeJoy said the elimination of night pickups could save the post office between $2.8 billion and $3.3 billion a year once it is fully implemented.

Don Maston, president of the National Rural Letter Carriers Association, the union that represents more than 133,000 rural letter carriers across the country, said it's too soon to tell what could happen.

"Those customers (on rural routes) may see a little bit of a slowdown, but it is still to be seen what those impacts will be," he said in an interview with the Daily Yonder.

Stephanie Crawford, regulatory affairs director for the National Rural Electric Cooperative Association, said the proposed slowdown would hinder rural electric co-ops' ability to do business.

"Our members rely on the postal service, primarily first class mail, for delivering their bills for service and then collecting payments," Crawford said in an interview with The Daily Yonder. "Many may take that for granted, but in rural areas, there's still a lack of broadband, so (online) electric payments are not necessarily either a viable option or a reliable option."

Rural residents tell their electric co-ops that getting bills and information through the mail is their preferred means of communication, she said. Owned by their members, cooperatives rely on the mail to let members know about meetings and changes.

"Our members use a lot of statewide cooperative magazines for communicating with their members as well," she said. "That's an important outlet for distributing information to their consumer members about programs … It lets them know when their annual meetings may be happening and also how to participate in boards of director elections. It's a vital way that the cooperatives communicate with their members."

In recent years, changes at the post office have already had an impact, she said.

"Our members are already experiencing problems with service in terms of late payments being received from their consumer members because of postal service delays," she said. "We hear examples of the consumer member receiving notices that they haven't received payment from the cooperative before they receive the original bill."

In one example, she said, Glades Electric Cooperative in Moore Haven, Florida, had received 11 late payments in February 2024 that had been mailed in June of the previous year.

In Wyoming, Secretary of State Chuck Gray has been vocal about his frustrations with the proposal and the USPS handling of public feedback over the proposal. In September, Gray tried to sign up for a public forum that was the only opportunity residents in his state would have to comment on the proposal. He, and many other Wyoming residents reported to Cowboy State Daily that they were not able to register for the public forum. 

Gray said the changes would damage mail delivery in Wyoming. 

"I am deeply disturbed by the Postal Service's continuing proposals, which have had a disproportionate impact on Wyoming's mail service, and have rendered a crucial service untimely and unreliable," Gray said in an emailed statement to the Daily Yonder. "I have been vocal in my demands that the Postal Service's repeated attempts to move mail processing outside the State of Wyoming be withdrawn, as they are detrimental to the integrity of our elections, and our way of life. I am also deeply troubled by the Postal Service's unwillingness to engage with the public on this issue. The Postal Service should listen to Wyomingites and withdraw this proposal in its entirety."

On Tuesday, October 2, a bipartisan coalition of Congress members sent a letter to the USPS asking DeJoy and the USPS to address the delays in mail service to rural communities across the country. 

U.S. Representative Tom Tiffany (R-Wisconsin), one of 20 members of Congress who wrote the letter, said rural residents are already experiencing delays and that the proposed slowdown would only exacerbate those issues. In the letter, lawmakers said the USPS's on-time delivery rate for the second quarter of 2024 was 69.9%, far below its stated target of 90.3%. 

Tiffany said his office has heard from constituents complaining about their rural mail delivery, and their concerns over the proposal. 

"My office has been hearing from numerous newspapers and residents across the Seventh District who are being negatively affected by significant delays in mail delivery," Tiffany said in a press release. "The Iron County Miner, for example, has seen delays stretching into weeks, and in some cases, newspapers are not delivered at all, according to a constituent's report … The implementation of the Delivering for America Plan has led to reduced services and harmed postal performance, especially in rural areas. Veterans, seniors, and many rural Wisconsinites depend on the USPS, and it's clear that changes need to be made."

Maston said his organization would be keeping an eye on the proposals to ensure that any cost-cutting measures don't impact quality of service. 

"I've worked with the post office for more than 35 years, and I've seen a lot of changes over the years," he said. "We've successfully delivered COVID tests and election mail. Customers may get a one-off of late deliveries or mail delivered to the wrong address, but those are not the norm. People only notice the missteps but overlook the positives."

For Michael Howard, a resident of 200-resident Manitou in western Kentucky, whatever happens to the post office won't much affect him. Most of his bills are handled online or are on autopay. The majority of his mail, he said, is junk mail and advertisements.

The only changes he has seen in recent years was getting packages too big to fit into his mailbox. Those require a trip to the post office to pick them up, he said, in a post office with dwindling hours.  

"I couldn't even remember the last time I put a stamp on something," he said in an interview with the Daily Yonder.