Boscola calls on Postal Service to ditch plans to ship Lehigh Valley mail through Harrisburg

HANOVER TWP., Lehigh County, Pa. — Add state Sen. Lisa Boscola, D-Lehigh/Northampton, to the list people questioning how the U.S. Postal Service (USPS) plans to save money by shipping local mail to Harrisburg before sending it back to the Lehigh Valley for delivery.

Under a USPS proposal, mail originating in the region will be trucked 80 miles west for processing. Any mail destined for local delivery then will be shipped back to the Lehigh Valley for distribution.

The plan raised eyebrows when released last month, and Boscola summed up many people's response when she released her official public comment to the USPS on Monday.

"Huh?" she wrote. "Any reasonable person sees the fallacy in this proposition.

"Driving mail 200 miles for no reasonable purpose will not streamline a government service, nor save taxpayers money. It is just not possible."

USPS officials said the changes would streamline operations, letting it save $5.3 million to $7 million.

The processing and distribution center on Postal Road would remain open to process incoming mail, according to officials. No jobs would be eliminated, though some 31 positions would be re-assigned.

The existing center would be improved through modernization via standard designs and workflow and refined operations, officials said.

By restructuring the floor layout, the center could improve mail flow, remove obstructions and improve lighting and common areas, they said.

Officials did not provide specific details on how any of the changes would generate financial savings during the meeting.

Not alone in criticizing plan

Instead, Boscola called on the department to keep the Lehigh Valley operation as a full-service processing and distribution site.

The region is the third-largest in the state and is a hub for economic activity.

"I would like to urge USPS to do further analysis that will better address the need to ensure that the Lehigh Valley residents and businesses receive their mail in a timely and cost-efficient manner," Boscola wrote.

Boscola isn't alone in questioning the plan.

During a Nov. 30 public presentation, representatives of the American Postal Workers Union said they could not determine how the USPS could achieve either savings or better delivery times if it increased its travel time and transportation costs without laying off workers.

The Lehigh Valley distribution center has been under scrutiny for years. U.S. Sen. Bob Casey, D-Pa., and U.S. Rep. Susan Wild, D-Lehigh Valley, requested an audit of the operation when delivery times ballooned during the coronavirus pandemic.

Trying to overhaul operations

The post office's inspector general found that while almost a third of all mail at the center was officially listed as delayed from January 2019 and August 2020, that number was inaccurate.

The facility failed to follow proper scanning procedures, so it was impossible to determine how much mail was actually affected, the audit found.

The system also failed to determine whether incoming mail was being held up at other facilities, the audit found. As a result, the audit could not determine what was causing the delays or the true scale of the problem.

The USPS is undergoing massive efforts to overhaul its operations to stem off years of heavy losses.

It closed the 2022-23 fiscal year with a $6.5 billion loss, despite raising the cost of stamps and cost cutting measures implemented by Postmaster General Louis DeJoy in recent years.

While the postal service closed 2022 with a net income of $56 billion, USPS officials said it was because of a one-time cash infusion from Congress.

According to the USPS' online metrics, most data shows almost 91% of mail across eastern Pennsylvania and Delaware arrived on time. That's right around the national average.

At the depths of the pandemic, that figure for eastern Pennsylvania fell to 82%, which was above the national average.

Figures for deliveries times just in the Lehigh Valley were not available.