Congressional pressure leads to pause for USPS consolidation plans

Huron, Sioux Falls facilities to remain untouched until at least next year

Photo by Trinity Nguyen on Unsplash

Outside pressure from a bipartisan group of U.S. Senators — including South Dakota’s Mike Rounds and John Thune — has forced the hand of Postmaster General Louis DeJoy.

In a letter to a Senate committee last week, the leader of the United States Postal Service confirmed that plans to downsize about 60 regional facilities across the country, like those in Sioux Falls and Huron, would be put on hold until at least January 2025 because of concerns raised by members of Congress.

“Even then, we will not advance these efforts without advising you of our plans to do so, and then only at a moderated pace of implementation,” DeJoy wrote in the May 9 letter.

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It’s a sudden change of heart for the organization, after it announced in the last few weeks that it was charging forward with plans to downsize operations in at least Sioux Falls — despite strong public and labor union opposition.

That would mean moving mail distribution operations for much of eastern South Dakota to Omaha, Nebraska — which opponents feared could slow the pace of mail delivery between in-state destinations by several days, especially during weather events that prohibited mail from being transported back to Sioux Falls from Omaha.

USPS said that those concerns would be offset by $12 million in upgrades to the Sioux Falls facility, and assurances that employees there would have other options so as not to lose their jobs. That would have included new facilities, sorting equipment and even battery-powered vehicles in what the federal government is promoting as moving USPS toward “green energy.” Those upgrades have also been put on hold until at least next year.

“(This has been) a process of transparency, where we have undertaken analysis, notified the public and interested stakeholders, and provided opportunity for public input,” DeJoy continued.

While opponents of the change, like Rounds, celebrated the pause Monday afternoon, calling it a “step in the right direction,” retired labor leader Mark Anderson is cautiously optimistic ahead of the end of USPS’s Jan. 1 pause.

“It would appear to me that if enough people made it enough of an issue, that forced it to become an issue on the federal level,” Anderson told The Dakota Scout. “Hopefully by next year, the board will change over and DeJoy will be gone and then things can get back to providing services and away from getting a truck full down to Omaha.”

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