KANSAS CITY, Mo. — After multiple complaints from residents, the United States Postal Service announced an audit on mail services in the Kansas City area.
People on both sides of the state line have had issues getting their mail in a timely fashion, and the audit will evaluate operations at the processing and distribution center.
In addition, the USPS Office of Inspector General will examine conditions at three local USPS branches:
- Robert L. Roberts Post Office in Kansas City, Kansas
- Shawnee Mission Post Office in Mission, Kansas
- Hickman Mills Post Office in Kansas City, Missouri
Kansas Sen. Roger Marshall was a driving force in the order of the audit.
In February, he wrote a letter to U.S. Postmaster General Louis DeJoy about mail delivery issues in Johnson County, Kansas.
Then, in March of 2024, he wrote another letter, joined by Kansas Sen. Jerry Moran and Missouri Sens. Josh Hawley and Eric Schmitt of Missouri, about continued delays across the Kansas City area.
"I think one of the big reasons we got results this time is you had four United States senators on one letter, and Kansas City doesn't leverage that enough," Marshall told KSHB 41 anchor Taylor Hemness in an interview on Friday morning.
Marshall continued, "I think when you put the four of us together, then the executive branch has to listen or else we're going to cut their funding. We're going to turn the lights on even brighter, so this case moved much quicker than usual."
Marshall described what he hopes to see once the audit is complete.
"(The Inspector General's) job is to come in and say, 'This is where the problem is,'" Marshall said. "Why is the mail service in Kansas City metro worse than St. Louis or worse than Chicago? Then it'll be up to the United States Postal Service to say, 'Here's what the solutions are.' And then we'll be keeping an eye on this." Marshall said his timeline on seeing results could be before the end of the summer. "There's no reason that 90 days from now that we don't see some improvement." Marshall said. "If we don't, I'll be very dissatisfied."
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