SUMMIT COUNTY, Colo. — An audit of post offices in Colorado mountain towns found piles and piles of undelivered mail.
Neighbors have been complaining about delayed packages, and the Office of Inspector General (OIG) discovered problems the locals have been pointing to: low staffing levels and poor pay.
"Long wait times. Inability to access their boxes. Lost packages. Those are a lot of the concerns we hear on a frequent basis," said Tamara Pouge, commissioner in Summit County.
The findings were not surprising to Pouge, who hears complaints constantly. Community members contacted political leaders and the U.S. Postal Service to express frustrations about significant delivery delays and poor customer service.
The audit by OIG found on-time delivery in mountain towns was lower than the average nationwide.
"I think probably if you asked anyone in Summit County right now they would say yes, that is exactly the problem," Pouge said.
The biggest problem Pouge is looking at is staffing. Even when positions were filled, the report said 13 of 14 facilities struggled to retain personnel, especially in the first three months of new employees’ tenure. Turnover in Buena Vista, according to the audit, was 78% during fiscal year 2022.
The audit said the rising cost of living, especially housing, and less competitive wages than other employers contributed to the Postal Service's difficulty in hiring and retaining employees.
Even though the cost of living in Colorado has increased significantly since 2019, the Postal Service's hourly pay remained largely unchanged.
"I think being a high cost of living community, if you can't pay adequate wages you will struggle to compete to get the kinds of workforce you need to do anything," Pouge said. "Even our fast food restaurants are starting at $24 an hour, and I understand the postal service is pretty far below that."
The report shows starting pay for postal employees has stayed between $15 and $20 per hour since 2019.
"The Postal Service has a policy allowing for increases in pay for cost-of-living adjustments based on local conditions; however, the facilities in Colorado mountain towns are not receiving these pay adjustments," the audit said. "The Postal Service has an opportunity to apply or expand upon existing policies to better incentivize hiring and retention in Colorado mountain towns to compete with other employers."
Mail delivery is critical to residents in mountain towns. They have fewer options to receive medications and financial documents.
OIG made eight recommendations to address the causes of poor service performance and customer service and two recommendations related to staffing and retention in Colorado mountain towns.
Colorado U.S. Senators Michael Bennet (D) and John Hickenlooper (D) and Colorado U.S. Representatives Joe Neguse (D) and Brittany Pettersen (D) released a statement on the U.S. Postal Service Inspector General’s report on mail service in Colorado’s mountain towns.
It said in part, "Over the past two years, we have repeatedly raised the serious concerns of Coloradans to the U.S. Postal Service. We are pleased to see the USPS Office of Inspector General heed our call to address the root causes of the poor mail service in our mountain towns. We urge USPS to swiftly implement the report’s recommendations and will work with them to ensure they do so.”
Earlier this year, Bennet and Hickenlooper invited Postmaster Louis Dejoy to tour a facility in Colorado to see the delivery challenges firsthand. In March, Dejoy committed to improving service quality in Colorado.
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