Audit: Center that could process local mail plagued with delays

The Richmond-area center that the U.S. Postal Service has proposed using for processing Hampton Roads mail has been plagued with delivery delays and is among the nation's least efficient postal hubs, according to a recent internal audit by the agency.

A spokeswoman for the Postal Service said, however, that "a lot has changed" at the processing center in Sandston - including top managers - since the audit, which was done in March and released in September.

The postal agency announced in September that it was considering closing the Norfolk Planning and Distribution Center on Church Street and transferring its functions to the newer Richmond center.

Norfolk's site, which has more than 700 workers, is among about 250 processing centers that could be shut to reduce the agency's multi-billion-dollar deficit. The proposal would not affect the service counter at the Church Street location.

The audit, by the U.S. Postal Service's Office of Inspector General, said the center near Richmond "experienced difficulties with the timely processing of mail" during 2010 and part of this year, causing "significant mail delays."

Among other factors, it cited "inadequate staffing and supervision..., failure to consistently color-code arriving mail and inaccurate identification and reporting of delayed mail."

The number of pieces of delayed mail that went through the Sandston center jumped 140 percent - to 54.2 million from 22.6 million - between the first quarters of federal fiscal years 2009 and 2011, the audit reported.

Nearly 11.7 percent of "first-handled pieces" at the center were delayed in delivery, the audit said. That was the highest rate among more than 40 other "similar-sized facilities," including in Baltimore, Cleveland, Dallas, Los Angeles and Tampa, Fla. Norfolk was not on the list.

Michele Martel, a spokeswoman for the Postal Service in Richmond, said she was not aware of a similar recent audit for the Norfolk processing center.

"A lot has changed at Sandston" since the audit, she said in an email, "including the plant manager and many of the managerial staff."

She noted that the Inspector General's office accepted a list of proposed improvements submitted by officials at the center, including filling vacant positions, establishing daily tracking procedures and appointing a team to monitor delays.

"The corrective actions should resolve the issues identified in the report," the audit said.

Michele Wright, president of the Norfolk local of the American Postal Workers Union, has lobbied against the proposed closure. Wright said she couldn't speak about quality issues at the Richmond center.

"What I can say is this: We believe we do just as good or a better job at getting the mail out to customers in the Hampton Roads area than anyone else can do," she said.

In a recent letter to local leaders, she noted that pieces of mail would twice have to cross spans such as the Hampton Roads and Monitor-Merrimac Memorial bridge-tunnels. She warned that could delay everything from bill payments to medications.

"The USPS is advancing its proposal without providing any real evidence that operations will become more efficient," Wright wrote.

Maintaining and improving service is a top priority, Martel said. "Letters mailed to local addresses will be delivered the next day, the same as before."

The Postal Service will hold a public hearing, conduct a study and solicit public comment before making a decision, she said.

Wright was among dozens of workers who rallied outside U.S. Rep. Scott Rigell's Virginia Beach office - and spoke with him - in September. They said the postal agency could avert the closure of the center, as well as of thousands of branches and offices nationwide, if it revised its system of pre-funding health benefits for future retirees.

Workers plan to hold another series of rallies Tuesday, Wright said. They will gather outside the Church Street post office from 9 to 11 a.m. and near the Tide station on City Hall Avenue in downtown Norfolk from noon to 2 p.m.

"We just want to say we provide good service," Wright said. "We don't want it to go anyplace else."

Philip Walzer, (757) 222-3864, phil.walzer@pilotonline.com