ATLANTA — As metro Atlanta businesses and individuals continue to grapple with mail delays stemming from a new centralizing facility in Palmetto, an audit just released by the USPS Office of Inspector General on the opening of the same kind of facility last year in Richmond, Virginia says delays there lasted four months.
The Atlanta Regional Processing & Distribution Center in Palmetto opened on Feb. 24, consolidating Atlanta, Augusta, Macon and Duluth area processing and distribution centers.
Since then, 11Alive has increasingly heard from viewers who have experienced frustrating delays or other problems with their mail, impacting everything from their small business shipments to medicine deliveries to tax documents. Members of Congress from Georgia from both sides of the aisle, including Republican Rep. Mike Collins and Democratic Sen. Jon Ossoff, have called for answers.
Atlanta is not the first area to experience disruption following the opening of this kind of facility. They are a centerpiece of a system-wide modernization drive within the USPS, and the first one the agency opened was in Richmond last year.
An audit of the metro Atlanta facility began in March, but a report won't be released until August. The report on Richmond, however, was released on Monday and gives some insights on the uneven results that followed its opening.
11Alive has contacted USPS on multiple occasions for answers to questions that would paint a fuller picture of what's going on at the Palmetto facility. In USPS' latest response last week, the postal service said it doesn't have any further updates.
In a statement to 11Alive, it added in part that "operations are improving as we continue to make significant investments in the Atlanta area, including new sorting machines, upgraded facilities and more efficient transportation, that will help ensure our organization can provide reliable delivery services for years to come." You can find USPS' full statement at the bottom of this story.
You can also check out the report on Richmond below:
"The challenges caused the Postal Service to incur additional labor and transportation costs, totaling over $8 million in questioned costs over the first four months of operations," it states. "The challenges also contributed to a decrease in service performance for the Richmond region that continued four months after launch."
The report also faults pre-existing issues in Richmond, which it said the postal service did not address in the run-up to convert it into a new kind of centralized facility.
"The Postal Service did not take actions to address known weaknesses before converting the Richmond P&DC into an RP&DC," the audit states. "These issues included inadequate management and employee staffing, low employee availability, high turnover, low service performance, missed clearance times, 10 overcrowding, and low productivity."
The report includes photos of some of the issues that began to appear at the facility. The packages, in the photo below, were tagged as "packages arriving after operations were completed."
Some packages were also tagged as a "lack of mail handlers to move sorted packages to dispatch dock," as seen below:
Additionally, the packages, pictured below, were tagged as "congested collections dock."
USPS also provided a timeline of service disruption in the statement below:
The percent of mail and packages delivered on time in the Richmond region declined after launch of the RP&DC through August 2023. The Postal Service was able to increase the percent of mail delivered on time for all mail classes in September but was still below service levels from before the launch. The percent of mail and packages delivered on time declined significantly beginning in October when the Postal Service implemented its Local Transportation Optimization29 initiative while simultaneously making changes to the RP&DC, handling Election Mail for local elections, and processing the increased mail volumes of its peak mailing season in the same area. While we are not able to isolate the specific service and cost impacts of the Local Transportation Optimization initiative, we plan to issue a separate report on Postal Service’s Local Transportation Optimization initiative.30 Therefore, we did not make a recommendation in this report.
The audit included 10 recommendations, which USPS management largely agreed with, according to the report.
However, the USPS leaders disagreed with recommendation #10, which was: "We recommend that the Vice President, Processing and Maintenance Operations, communicate any impacts to customers when permanently moving processing operations of a three-digit ZIP Code to another processing facility."
The USPS leaders responded: "Management disagrees with this recommendation to the extent it presumes that moving processing operations in a single service area leads to service impacts. We will report service impacts to our customers as appropriate."
They further argued that moving operations are not always as large-scale such as the consolidation that occurred in Atlanta – for instance moving operations from one building to another across the street – and thus often "there is no impact to service."
"Therefore, the blanket nature of this recommendation is overbroad and unnecessary and would impede efficient operations," they stated.
That response was signed by Vice President for Processing and Maintenance Operations Dane A. Coleman, Vice President for Logistics Robert Cintron, VP and Chief Data and Analytics Officer Steve M. Dearing, Vice President for Retail and Post Office Operations Elvin Mercado and Vice President for Eastern Regional Processing Operations Todd Hawkins.
Full USPS statement on metro Atlanta delays
The Postal Service plays an important role in the community, and we are committed to providing the best service possible. While a significant portion of mail and packages in the Atlanta area is being delivered in a timely manner, management is aware of the concerns of some local customers regarding their mail and package delivery and are working quickly to resolve any issues. Operations are improving as we continue to make significant investments in the Atlanta area, including new sorting machines, upgraded facilities and more efficient transportation, that will help ensure our organization can provide reliable delivery services for years to come. We sincerely express our apologies to our customers who may have experienced a deviation from our normal dependable service and appreciate their patience. Customers are reminded that, if they need assistance with mailing or shipping concerns, they have a variety of options for reaching us, including contacting a manager or supervisor at their local Post Office, calling 1-800-ASK-USPS(1-800-275-8777), or visiting our website at www.usps.com.
11Alive News is hearing from customers who are experiencing issues submitting a ‘missing mail search request.’ We’re aware of these problems and requested more information from USPS on next steps.
Those experiencing delays or who have not received mail can contact the newsroom with your concerns as we continue to cover this story. Fill out our online form below, and someone from our news team will follow up with you.