JACKSONVILLE, Fla. – The President of the Florida Letter Carriers Association for the United States Postal Service is responding to calls for an investigation into delayed and missing mail at Postal Service’s Network Distribution Center.
Five North Florida leaders want the inspector general to conduct an audit, as the post office modernizes its system.
The Postal Service is in the midst of implementing a massive transformation of its processing and delivery networks creating dozens of Regional Processing and Distribution Centers or (RPDC’s ) across the nation.
These processing centers can handle all mail transported in the region, and there’s a new focus on automation for parcel delivery.
News4JAX spoke with the President of the Florida Letter Carriers Association Al Friedman on Friday who said he supports the audit or investigation into lost or delayed mail.
He highlighted the challenges that USPS is facing during this transition to more automation in handling parcels, including glitches and shortages in personnel.
He’s confident the system will get better over time.
“So if you convert a plan to automation, and automation that isn’t working or breaks down, you don’t have the personnel there that you did before that it wouldn’t interrupt the service. So they’re seeing major issues when automation coming into these places are breaking down. Will it get better, how long will that take? Nobody knows. Till they iron out all the issues from within those centers,” he said.
Friedman also said USPS is in the process of closing several local post offices and converting them into more efficient SDNC’s or supercenters.
He suggested consolidating postmasters to save costs and improve efficiency.
News4JAX also asked him about whether the delays will affect election mail. The answer to that is absolutely not, he said. All election mail and mail-in ballots are set aside from regular mail.
They are held in one office and delivered directly to the Supervisor of Elections Office.