Mail processing in Georgia improving but delays continue

Mail processing at the United States Postal Service's (USPS) regional facility in Palmetto is getting better, but Georgians are continuing to suffer delays sending and receiving mail.

That was the upshot of an exchange Monday between Postmaster General Louis DeJoy and U.S. Sen. Jon Ossoff, D-Ga.

In response to an update Ossoff requested last week, DeJoy reported that 64.5% of first-class mail between May 18 and May 24 was delivered on time, up from a mid-March low of just 35.8%. In addition, 82.9% of first-class mail during that period was delivered within one day of on time, DeJoy wrote in a letter to Ossoff.

'Our 640,000 postal workers deserve the infrastructure to help them deliver mail six and seven days a week,' DeJoy wrote. 'However, as a result of over a decade-long consequence of terrible congressional legislation and the resulting regulation, our infrastructure and work environment in the Atlanta area has deteriorated to an embarrassing and unworkable condition.'

Ossoff first raised the issue of delays in mail processing at the Palmetto center during a Senate committee hearing in mid-April.

DeJoy told the committee the delays were the result of problems encountered during the rollout last winter of a restructuring plan aimed at making the postal service economically self-sufficient. The plan was first implemented at the processing center in Palmetto and at a second center in Richmond, Va.

The postmaster general has responded by pausing the restructuring plan nationwide until at least the beginning of next year, adding more than 100 personnel from other centers to the Palmetto facility, and revising transportation schedules between Palmetto and other local mail processing centers.

'For months, I have sustained relentless pressure on USPS management to fully resolve disastrous performance failures impacting my constituents in Georgia,' Ossoff said Monday. 'I'm still hearing from Georgia families and businesses about the difficulty they continue to face sending and receiving their mail. I will not rest until my constituents are well and fully served by the U.S. Postal Service.'

In his letter to Ossoff, DeJoy announced that as of May 31, 85.4% of packages — rather than mail — were being delivered on time, while 95.4% of packages were being delivered within one day of on time. Those numbers include prescriptions as well as business supplies and products, he wrote.

DeJoy also noted that the June 9 primaries took place without reported delays of mail-in ballots.