Postmaster general halts changes blamed for delays until after election
DeJoy also announced he is expanding the Postal Service’s leadership task force on election mail “to enhance our ongoing work and partnership with state and local election officials in jurisdictions throughout the country.”
The postmaster general said retail hours at post offices will not change, mail processing equipment and blue collection boxes will not be moved, no mail processing facilities will close and overtime will be approved as needed.
In the weeks after taking the helm of the Postal Service, DeJoy imposed a series of changes designed to save the agency money, including curbing overtime and prohibiting workers from making extra trips for late-arriving mail. But the operational shifts have led to a delay in mail delivery and backlogs.
Last week, the Postal Service confirmed it mailed letters to 46 states warning mail-in ballots may not be received in time to be counted, sparking criticism as states have expanded vote-by-mail because of the coronavirus pandemic.
Concerned that millions of Americans could be disenfranchised due to late-arriving ballots and that prescriptions and bills are not being delivered on time, lawmakers in both chambers of Congress summoned DeJoy and Robert Duncan, the chairman of the Postal Service Board of Governors, to Capitol Hill.
DeJoy is set to testify before the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee on Friday, and he and Duncan agreed to appear before the House Oversight and Reform Committee for a hearing Monday.
The postmaster general’s announcement that he will be putting his operational initiatives on hold come days before the House was scheduled to return to Washington to take up legislation that prohibits the Postal Service from making any changes to its operations or levels of service until the end of the pandemic.