It’s not just you: Johnson County mail delivery is slow, but there’s no quick fix

Continued delays with mail delivery in Johnson County have residents and elected officials alike frustrated — but with no clear solutions in sight.

Throughout the Kansas City region, people have been leveling complaints about mail taking days or even weeks to get to them.

“It’s been pretty bad,” said Steve Rogers, who lives in the Creekside neighborhood in Shawnee, between Metcalf and Nall. “Sometimes you don’t get mail for four or five days.”

It’s been enough of a concern that local Congressional members from both political parties, including Republican Sens. Roger Marshall and Jerry Moran and Democratic Rep. Sharice Davids, are asking for answers.

“If you talk to anyone from the Kansas delegation, every single one of us is hearing from our constituents about the the level of service or lack of service,” Davids said.

Mail delays are affecting important deliveries

In Shawnee, Rogers said he started noticing the mail wasn’t showing up as frequently as it used to.

“It’s pretty frustrating,” he said. “You use the mail for contact lenses and medicines, financial statements that you need. I just started my Social Security and that’s all through the mail … My neighbor up the street, his wife needs medicine (through the mail).”

The delays seem to vary by neighborhood, Rogers said.

“My daughter, she lives a couple of miles away and her mail person has been on the route. So, no problems,” he said.

Earlier this year in Lenexa, Dan Weatherly said his home mail delivery was sporadic to the point where he didn’t feel confident sending important documents.

“I had some things to send to my CPA, I just drove it instead of putting it in the mail,” he said. “It’s just not worth it getting hung up for who knows — two days to 10 days?”

In Overland Park, Denise Jones wrote to the Johnson County Post that her deliveries were down to a couple of days per week.

“I am confident we are not the only neighborhood with this issue — although I hope that any others are receiving more service than we are,” Jones wrote.

A thread in the Kansas City subsection of Reddit detailed mail issues across the Kansas City area, from medications being delayed to alleged staffing issues with the postal service.

Statistics show on-time deliveries are down

In Johnson County, the U.S. Postal Service had about 72% of single-piece letters and postcards delivered on-time during the ongoing fiscal year 2024, which started on Oct, 1, 2023, according to the USPS’s Service Performance tracking website. That’s a drop of roughly 8% from the 80% on-time delivery rate recorded in fiscal year 2023.

In a letter penned in March to U.S. Postmaster Louis DeJoy, Marshall and Moran, along with Missouri Republican Sens. Josh Hawley and Eric Schmitt, cited that statistic among other evidence of mail delays and demanded an explanation.

“According to the U.S. Postal Service’s own metrics, delivery performance of all classes of mail in the Kansas-Missouri region lags far behind national performance data, indicating substantial and unique issues with the facilities that serve this region,” the senators wrote.

The letter follows previous Congressional action addressing mail issues, like The Postal Service Reform Act of 2022, which was signed into law by President Joe Biden in 2023.

The law’s intent was to save the postal service money by removing a mandate that required the USPS to “pre-fund” 100% of its retiree health benefit liabilities, 75 years into the future at a cost of $5.5 billion a year over the first ten years.

The law also intends to improve transparency and requires six-day-per-week deliveries for mail and packages.

The USPS is failing to fulfill that promise to Kansans, Moran wrote in a statement to the Johnson County Post.

“I have heard from numerous Kansans who are frustrated that the U.S. Postal Service is not fulfilling its mandatory six-days-a-week delivery schedule,” he stated.

A representative for the USPS did not respond when asked for comment on DeJoy’s reaction to the letter.

Frustrations stretch across party lines

With her office consistently receiving calls about mail delays, Davids said she’s also frustrated.

“It’s having an impact on real lives,” she said. “Whether it’s people who are trying to pay their bills, get their medications — that’s a big thing that I hear a lot of people talk about because that’s really scary.”

In 2020, Davids called for the the removal of DeJoy, who she said is to blame for the delays.

Appointed by former President Donald Trump, DeJoy, a wealthy longtime businessman, caused controversy early in his tenure as postmaster by implementing cost-cutting measures, including reducing employee overtime and removing mail-sorting machines in facilities across the country, according to the Associated Press.

In 2023, Davids wrote a joint letter with Moran asking DeJoy to address issues with the mail. Neither request received a meaningful response, she said.

“I have not yet seen an effective or sufficient response from the Postmaster General,” she said.

Staffing shortages are hurting deliveries

In a letter to Congress in early 2024, DeJoy highlighted cost-saving measures, like cutting work by 28 million hours in fiscal year 2023, as well as closing 40 facilities across the U.S., in favor of constructing 100 sorting and delivery centers, large facilities that consolidate the operations of letter carriers and mail handlers under one roof.

These measures are hurting postal workers by making them do more with less resources, said Michelle Fitzpatrick, president of the Kaw Valley Area Local #238 Postal Workers Union.

“(With) the intentional staffing shortages, (they’re) expecting people to do more than eight hours of work,” she said. “Where it used to be four people (working), now it’s one … You’ve got supervisors delivering mail.”

Congress is trying to work with DeJoy on how to address those shortages, Moran stated in a press release.

“I expressed these frustrations to Postmaster General DeJoy and will continue working to find solutions to address staffing shortages in the Johnson County region and hold the USPS accountable for its services,” he stated.

Some customers, like Rogers in Shawnee, don’t have confidence that those problems can be fixed.

“It’s a local labor issue,” Rogers said. “The postmaster general is not going to really fix that.”

A representative for the USPS also did not respond to requests for comment on staffing shortages.

Elected officials say customers need to continue voicing frustrations

The most effective way people in the area can help is continuing to reach out to their representatives, Davids said.

“If you’re having problems with the Postal Service, I do think it’s important to let your elected [officials] know because it just helps when we have the full picture of what’s going on,” she said.

If people are experiencing mail issues, they are asked to contact the USPS on its website.

“When mail service issues occur, we take steps to quickly resolve customer concerns,” said Mark Inglett, communications specialist for the postal service who is based in Kansas City, Missouri. “We gladly work to address any specific issue from the community when brought to our attention and we encourage customers to reach out to their local postal station.”

For customers who have seen mail resume to normal deliveries, like Weatherly, the damage has already been done and it will take some major changes to win them back.

“I don’t know what it will take for me to have the feeling of confidence that I had two or three years ago, that if I put something in the mail, it’s going to get there,” Weatherly said.