Not all Kansas Citians are getting mail on time. Now, leaders ask USPS to stop rate hikes

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Louise Pfankuche was desperate. It had been 10 days since she received mail at her South Kansas City home, and she was waiting on medication from her mail-order pharmacy and an electricity bill.

So the 94-year-old packed her walker and two grocery bags and asked her daughter to take her to the Hickman Mills post office, where there were 32 pieces of mail waiting for Pfankuche. A mail carrier finally trekked down her cul-de-sac on Jan. 20 — three days after her trip to the post office and two weeks after her last delivery.

“I’ve lived in this same spot for 68 years, we never had this problem before, until the last year or so,” Pfankuche said.

“I know (the Hickman Mills post office is) short handed, but I don’t know what to do.”

Pfankuche is not alone. For more than a year, people around the metro have had to wait on unexpected delivery delays from the U.S. Postal Service — a phenomenon backed up by a federal audit that found more than 64 million pieces of delayed mail in Kansas City between October 1, 2022 and March 31, 2023.

Some residents in Brookside have started calling it “No Mail Mondays” after averaging less than three deliveries a week. Others in Kansas City told The Star they’ve missed out on wedding invitations or faced fines because mail they dropped off wasn’t postmarked in time.

This week, the USPS raised postal rates for the fourth time in the last 18 months. Rep. Emanuel Cleaver, a Kansas City Democrat, and Rep. Sam Graves, a Tarkio Republican, wrote a letter to the U.S. Postal Service board — signed by another 17 representatives — asking that they halt the rate increases until the USPS can improve its mail delivery.

“The higher the cost of postage, the fewer the people who can afford to pay it, particularly the elderly,” Cleaver told The Star in an interview. “And they’re the ones who get hurt the most because many of them are getting their lifesaving pharmaceuticals through the postal service.”

Cleaver and Graves have been criticizing the postal service for its lackluster performance for the past two years. The two have written several letters demanding that USPS improve its performance in the Kansas City area, citing a 2021 law where Congress gave a one-time payment of $57 billion to USPS, which runs mostly on its own postage sales, in order to ensure it continued to offer mail delivery six days a week.

But with each letter from the representatives, the post office has pointed to the same problem — there aren’t enough employees. An audit of 10 post office stations in the Kansas City area and the Kansas City Processing and Distribution Center conducted by the Inspector General of the USPS found that the stations were understaffed by 77 employees, even though the system said they were only down 44 employees.

The USPS declined to comment on the record to The Star. In response to a recommendation in the audit that it come up with a plan to hire more employees, the office said it would conduct weekly job fairs, ask employees to invite people they know to apply and advertise on the radio and social media.

The USPS was scheduled to increase their recruitment effort starting December 31, but Sen. Josh Hawley, a Missouri Republican whose request prompted the audit, said Thursday he doesn’t believe service has improved.

“Nobody should have to wait for their mail for weeks and weeks and nobody should have mail lost,” Hawley said. “And then the total non-responsiveness where you can’t get an answer out of them. They won’t answer the residents. They won’t answer me. I just think it’s ridiculous.”

The majority of the delayed mail in the audit was found at Kansas City’s Processing and Distribution Center, where there were more than 60 million pieces of delayed mail over the course of six months.

Two local post offices each had more than one million pieces of delayed mail. The Barry Woods Annex in the Northland had 1.6 million pieces of delayed mail, and South Troost Station on the edge of Waldo and Marlborough had more than one million pieces of delayed mail. The James Crews Station in 18th and Vine was close behind with nearly 884,000 pieces of delayed mail.

Cleaver said he wasn’t convinced the problem is getting better — the number of people calling his office to complain about their mail has tripled since 2022. While a loyal supporter of President Joe Biden, Cleaver questioned why fixing the USPS hasn’t been more of a priority for the administration.

“No matter who the president is, this is a problem,” Cleaver said. “Unless the president wants to close the post office.”

Cleaver is particularly critical of Postmaster Louis DeJoy, a former logistics company CEO and major Republican donor. DeJoy was appointed Postmaster General when appointees of former President Donald Trump controlled the board.

Biden has appointed a majority of the nine-member USPS Board of Governors, but there are still two positions that have remained vacant through 2023. Cleaver wondered why appointing the two additional governors hasn’t been more of a priority for the Biden administration and why the board has not moved to remove DeJoy.

“I think that’s a bit frustrating for many of us, because I think DeJoy is actually creating a great deal of instability for USPS,” Cleaver said. “And it’s obviously not on the president’s radar right now.”

The White House did not comment when asked why Biden hasn’t appointed more members to the board.

Cleaver said he plans to “inundate” people around Biden with requests that he take the issue seriously, given the fact that most Americans are affected by the post office and the postal delays appear to be happening across the country.

“No matter who you are or your political affiliation, we’ve got to get beyond the shortsightedness,” Cleaver said. “We’re not looking at the postal service as what it should be.”

Pfankuche, the woman who didn’t receive mail for nearly two weeks, lamented that the post office isn’t meeting the basic standards of delivering mail on time.

“It used to be that that was something that was just a given,” she said. “I mean you could rely on the mail service no matter what happened anywhere, everywhere. And it’s not like that anymore.”

Having mail issues?

Cleaver recommended reaching out to your congressional representative if you are not getting mail delivered. “I think the public has to continue to do what they’re doing, which is let us know how difficult things are being made by the postal service.”

You can also report issues to the U.S. Postal Service directly by calling or visiting your local post office or contacting the national organization at 1-800-275-8777 or submitting a form.

A first class letter is considered late if it hasn’t arrived five or more days after it was sent, according to the postal service website.

The agency recommended reaching out if your address has not received mail in two days or is not getting it on the same day for two weeks.