USPS audit found Bemidji post office delayed delivery of 79,000 pieces of mail

BEMIDJI, Minn. – It’s not enough for Karen Schaar to send a text wishing her daughters a happy Mother’s Day. She has learned after years of delivery delays at the Bemidji post office to plan ahead and pay a premium so cards for every occasion arrive on time.

“I want it sitting on their table saying your mom and dad remembered you today,” Schaar said at the post office Wednesday clasping two greeting cards more precious to her than a winning lottery ticket. Instead of sticking a stamp in the right corner, she has a new system: sliding cards into a priority flat rate envelope.

“And it’s only going to the Cities,” she added. “That’s kind of depressing.”

An audit this week revealed the understaffed and overworked Bemidji post office — grappling with mountains of Amazon packages — delayed the delivery of 79,000 pieces of mail during a three-day inspection in December. The U.S. Postal Service Office of Inspector General released the report identifying the insufficient staffing and delivery operations. The audit comes after mail carriers here staged a symbolic strike in November that gained national attention, prompting calls from lawmakers to address the delivery disruptions in northern Minnesota.

Mail concerns in the area are nothing new and plague all corners of the state. Schaar, a 76-year-old part-time real estate agent, said when Louis DeJoy became postmaster general in 2020 “everything changed after that.”

“And everyone I talk to is pretty discouraged by the whole thing. I can mail a letter to Deer River, which is an hour drive from here. It’ll take at least three days to get there,” she said. “I can send a letter to Iowa and it will leave Bemidji, go to Grand Forks, come back to the Cities. … It takes me five days to mail a letter to my granddaughter. I would call that unheard of in this day and age. It used to be pretty much direct.”

Poor management and Amazon are to blame for the delivery delays and backlogs, the 16-page report revealed.

USPS officials gave Bemidji an eight-day heads-up in October that Amazon shipments would fold into operations. Management estimated 2,400 Amazon packages daily — a 131% volume increase from the same time last year. But even that estimate was a lowball.

“The actual additional volume ranged from as high as 4,157 packages,” the audit said. “The total package volume peaked in the first week of December 2023, with over 27,000 packages for the week.”

With such short notice of the additional Amazon work, management didn’t supply extra vehicles or scanners. This required rural carriers in their personal cars to make multiple trips back to the post office in order to deliver the influx of packages.

The Bemidji post office and six surrounding ones in Bagley, Shevlin, Solway, Northome, Kelliher and Blackduck serve about 46,000 people.

Resignations and retirements spiked with the increased work hours and workloads, which put a strain on remaining carriers who suffered with low morale. By January of this year, the post office was down 15 carriers.

A carrier who asked not to be named for fear of retaliation said seven routes are still without carriers, but he doesn’t blame local management for the vacancies, rather a lack of applicants.

The audit found that the operation in Bemidji “is unusual.” It’s also unsustainable with management failing to fill vacant carrier positions.

A faded “now hiring” banner in the post office lawn appears to be a permanent fixture.

When reached by phone, Angela Bye, the district manager for USPS Minnesota-North Dakota, declined to comment. A USPS spokesperson directed the Star Tribune to management’s response contained in the report.

“The Postal Service stated they disagreed that the Bemidji Post Office was not prepared by headquarters for the dramatic increase in packages. However, management agreed with the recommendation and provided a target implementation date of June 30, 2024.”

Management agreed to properly report delayed mail and fill carrier vacancies.

“Whenever you hear something like that, obviously you’re wanting it to be addressed and taken care of,” said Todd Ertsgaard, a pastor in Bemidji who dropped by the post office Wednesday afternoon.

Patrick Wondra, of Pennington, offered one solution as he backed his pickup truck out of the busy post office parking lot.

“Fire the top four guys and look at the fifth person and say, ‘You’re in charge. If you don’t straighten this … up, you’re gonna be fired.”

Sen. Amy Klobuchar in a statement said that the audit results “are very concerning.”

“Families in Bemidji and the surrounding communities rely on the Postal Service every day for everything from their prescriptions to paychecks, but I received troubling reports about significant delays and issues with local mail delivery,” she said. Minnesotans deserve to have a reliable and responsive Postal Service.”