One of the U.S. Postal Service’s key reform initiatives is worsening service and raising costs, a recent inspector general report found, contrasting the agency’s claims about the impact of its changes.
The IG said a pilot program to test USPS’ Regional Transportation Optimization plan, which requires mail to sit overnight at post offices instead of being collected each evening for transportation to a processing center, caused mail to be delivered more slowly without any associated cost savings. As Postmaster General Louis DeJoy now looks to roll out the initiative on a nationwide basis, postal regulators are expressing concerns of the potential fallout.
Only some facilities are set to be impacted by the reforms, namely those more than 50 miles from the Postal Service’s new Regional Processing and Distribution Centers. USPS plans to stand up about 60 of those mega-centers, most of which will be located in urban areas. That has led to criticism that postal management’s mail slowdown will disproportionately impact rural communities.
