Sen. Tina Smith pens letter to Postmaster General amid mail delays

BEMIDJI, Minn. (Northern News Now) - After months of late mail deliveries, Minnesota Sentor Tina Smith is demanding answers from the United States Postal Service.

On Wednesday, Smith penned a letter directly to Postmaster General Louis DeJoy.

According to Smith, a new Inspector General report revealed severe management failures that led to mail delays in Bemidji and other parts of Northwest Minnesota.

The report states that there have been 80,000 pieces of mail delayed in arriving at their intended destinations.

Smith believes it’s time to address these problems, as reliable mail delivery isn’t a luxury, it’s a necessity.

“What was really disappointing was that the Postmaster General said he disagreed with these findings, and he basically was telling us that problems weren’t as severe as this inspector general’s report laid out,” said Smith. ”My letter is demanding that the Postmaster General take these issues seriously and that he inform me immediately what he’s doing to fix things.”

The OIG report reveals that the Bemidji Post Office only had eight days warning before their package volume doubled and Postal Service management failed to confirm that the facility had the staffing or resources to accommodate the increased volume.

It also found that local postal workers were not properly trained to avoid these issues and attributed these problems to to national and district management missteps, resulting in untenable working conditions for postal workers and severe delays in mail delivery.

USPS has since responded to the inspection results and disputes the finding, saying the management failures found in the report didn’t happen.

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