Service Performance Rebounds at Postal Service

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Aug 31, 2020, 17:04 ET

WASHINGTON, Aug. 31, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- In a letter transmitted today to the House Committee on Oversight and Reform and the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, the Postal Service provided service performance charts showing significant increases in all mail categories.

"As the charts show, service performance improved across all major mail categories in the weeks prior to my testimony (delivered on August 24), and this trend has continued through August, returning to early-July levels," said Postmaster General Louis DeJoy in his letter to the Committee. "This recovery took place while still adhering to our existing transportation schedules. In other words, we are improving service performance while more consistently running our trucks on time."

In mid-July, the Postal Service reemphasized the need to adhere to our existing transportation schedule, committing to be more disciplined by ensuring that our trucks should run on time and on schedule. As other parts of our processing network adjusted to meet the transportation schedule, there was a dip in overall service performance in late July and early August.

In his letter to the Committees, Postmaster General DeJoy stated, "As I testified, the intervening service declines should not have happened, but the changes are fundamental and necessary, and the Postal Service is strongly committed to fixing the problems by identifying and rectifying their root causes. While there are a number of factors at play related to service performance, including pressures related to the COVID-19 pandemic, natural disasters, and other unforeseen events, I am confident that the Postal Service's performance will continue to improve overall, and that it will ultimately exceed our prior service performance levels. This is an organization-wide commitment."

The Postal Service has also committed to providing weekly service performance updates throughout the election season and the remainder of 2020.

The Postal Service has been working with the House Committee on Oversight and Reform staff regarding the provision of additional information. This includes a discussion following the hearing regarding efforts to address any outstanding requests and new requests from the hearing, and to make arrangements to produce information in an orderly fashion. We also arranged for today's briefing regarding updated service performance information. Given the straightforward and cooperative nature of these communications with the Committee staff, we were frankly surprised and confused by Chairwoman Maloney's statement today about her intent to issue a subpoena to the Postal Service. We will continue to cooperate with the Oversight committees in both the House and Senate, and we fully intend to comply with our obligations under the law.

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