Kansas Republican slams Louis DeJoy's USPS performance — to his face

TOPEKA — U.S. Sen. Roger Marshall delivered bleak messages to the nation’s postmaster general about the beleaguered U.S. Postal Service by channeling frustration of Kansans, specifically Dana from El Dorado, Mike from Topeka and Stacy of Marysville.

During a hearing of the U.S. Senate Governmental Affairs Committee in Washington, D.C., the Kansas Republican quizzed Postmaster General Louis DeJoy, who took the top USPS job in 2020. DeJoy has faced criticism for inconsistent handling of first-class mail, decommissioning high-speed sorting machines, forming bigger regional processing hubs that slowed delivery to rural customers and six postage rate hikes since 2021.

“We asked some folks back home, if you could be in front of the postmaster general, what questions would they ask you,” said Marshall to DeJoy. The senator said Stacy and Mike proposed the same query. “What is justifying the consistent price increases with no change or improvement in delivery time or service?”

DeJoy said mail-delivery service was slipping before he was selected by the Postal Service’s Board of Governors.

“Senator, we had a defective pricing model for 20 years,” DeJoy said. “Mail volume was cut in half and we weren’t allowed to raise our prices to accommodate that.”

The cost of a U.S. first-class stamp was 1 cent in 1863 and didn’t hit the 5-cent plateau for a century. The price of the basic postage stamp hit 50 cents in 2019. Under DeJoy, the cost of a forever stamp surged to 58 cents in 2021, 60 cents in 2022, 63 cents in early 2023, 66 cents in late 2023, 68 cents in early 2024 and 73 cents later in 2024.

The Postal Service’s financial trajectory must be stabilized before delivery metrics substantially improve, DeJoy said. He also said there had to be workplace adjustments.

“I have my people, 640,000 people, that need to learn how to operate like Fed Ex and UPS,” the postmaster said. “That’s the only way we survive.”

Half Kansans disappointed

Marshall said Dana from El Dorado would have asked the postmaster general why rural mail was no longer delivered in a timely manner. She yearned for days of two- or three-day delivery anywhere in the United States.

DeJoy said the standard USPS delivery time was reset in 2021 at five days, up from the unrealistic goal of three days. The Postal Service was spending $3.5 billion flying mail around the country in an attempt to hit the three-day target, he said.

“We put everything on a truck on a ground service. We’ve taken $1.5 billion out of our transportation budget,” DeJoy said.

Marshall said a poll was sent to about 400,000 Kansans to get a sense of attitudes about mail delivery. More than half of Kansas respondents said their mail service was unreliable. Nearly 70% said they’d personally experienced delays in the past year.

“Certainly you’re not going to call that success?” Marshall said.

DeJoy’s confession: “We have issues in Kansas. I’m working a strategy specifically to enhance the service in Kansas. I recognize it’s there, and we’re going to fix it.”

Marshall said he was convinced DeJoy wanted to make the system better, but urged the postmaster general to explain where resistance to reform was coming from.

“I think there’s a romance with an organization that long ago lost its ability to do the service that everybody expected,” DeJoy said. “That’s the issue here.”

What about Winchester?

Marshall asled DeJoy to pledge to complete work on a contract so the city of Winchester in Jefferson County could have a post office for the first time since October 2020. The senator sent a letter last summer to DeJoy about Winchester’s lack of a post office. At the hearing, DeJoy said he was uncertain he could make the commitment.

DeJoy said Congress had long burdened the Postal Service with “significant unfunded mandates.” He said members of Congress were loath to embrace his plans for price hikes, shorter post office hours and slower first-class mail delivery. He said U.S. House members had begged him not to saddle their congressional district with unpopular changes.

“It would have been easier for me to build a new postal service than to transition this one, because we’re also delivering 400 million pieces of mail and packages a day,” DeJoy said.

While serving as postmaster general, DeJoy has been accused of conflicts of interest and meddling with mail-in voting to distort outcomes in the 2020 election.

He’s also been lauded for securing passage of a bipartisan Postal Service reform bill, delivering 500 million COVID-19 test kits through the mail and agreeing to change course and move the Postal Service’s fleet to electric vehicles.

Other inquiries, comments

Prior to the hearing, Marshall requested followers on Facebook recommend questions for DeJoy. Some asserted DeJoy’s initial assignment from then-President Donald Trump was to undermine the Postal Service so it would be easier to privatize the federal agency.

“Wasn’t DeJoy a Trump appointee specifically to slow down and screw up USPS?” said Timothy Cable. “I’d like you to mention that.”

“Stop with the pandering,” Andrea Pfeifer messaged Marshall. “You knew when he was put in place by Trump, with no experience, that he was put in there to try and destroy the basic functions of the P.O. in order to try and privatize the services and make money for the rich corporate pocket liners.”

Allen Crowder wondered if DeJoy could explain why Postal Service union members were given “so much power to slow down the mail?”

“I am a former postal worker, and have seen the corrupt unions doing their corrupt tricks,” Crowder said.

Mellissa Chestnut, who said she was a Postal Service employee, said it didn’t make sense DeJoy embraced a philosophy of giving Amazon packages preference over regular mail.

“I’d like to know what the plan is to get Amazon under control? Amazon is killing us. Why are we putting Amazon priority over everything else?” she said.

Meanwhile, Mike Smith recommended Marshall and DeJoy talk about allowing local mail to be canceled in the city of origin for delivery the next day. In some instances, letters must be hauled long distances to centralized facilities for processing before transported back to the place of origin.

“From here to Dodge, to Wichita for canceling, then to Dodge, and back to Ashland. That’s government for you,” Smith said.

Kansas Reflector is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Kansas Reflector maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Sherman Smith for questions: info@kansasreflector.com. Follow Kansas Reflector on Facebook and X.