Sen. Hawley bill: No bonuses for bad postal service 

Sen. Josh Hawley, R-Missouri, announced this week plans to introduce a bill that would cut U.S. Postal Service officials’ bonuses for a year until mail delivery becomes more timely.

The No Bonuses for Bad Service Act would pause additional compensation for the postmaster general and deputy postmaster general for one fiscal year, with the expectation that USPS begins hitting an on-time delivery rate of 95% for all mail, according to Fox News.

While postage prices and delivery delays continue to rise, the postmaster general position has accumulated more than $2 million in bonuses over the past decade. Meanwhile, USPS has lost nearly $25 billion, according to Hawley’s office.

“Postal leadership isn’t hitting their metrics goal of delivering on-time mail in Missouri, and yet the Postmaster General is paying himself a bonus,” Hawley told Heartlander News. “In town after town, city after city of Missouri, we can’t get the mail, and yet these guys are giving themselves bonuses. It’s outrageous.”

The national average for mail delivery is 2.8 days, but only 75% of mail hits this rate, meaning 1 in 4 letters or packages take significantly longer to arrive. Additionally, a large pile of undelivered mail was found in a stack outside North St. Louis in April, and a later audit uncovered millions of pieces of mail were delayed at service centers in both St. Louis and Kansas City, according to a press release.

Current Postmaster General David Steiner testified before Congress in June but told Hawley he did not control the bonuses. In response to Hawley’s June 25 letter, Steiner invited Hawley to join a tour of the USPS St. Louis Processing and Distribution Center, according to Fox.

“If the St. Louis tour does not work for you, I would be happy to sit down and address the questions and concerns posed in your letter at your convenience,” he wrote. “Let us see what work we can do together to improve service for Missourians and all Americans.”

But Hawley said this reply does not address his previous request for documentation of bonuses and contracts.

“You seem to operate under the misapprehension that you are entitled to some kind of special deference,” Hawley said in his June letter. “In fact, it’s the people of Missouri that are entitled to something: you doing your job.”