These Kansas City area lawmakers are fed up with late mail. They want USPS to ‘pony up’

For months, the U.S. Postal Service has struggled to deliver mail on time in the Kansas City area, sometimes resulting in late bill payments or delayed medications delivered through the mail.

Now, three Kansas City area lawmakers want the U.S. Postal Service to pay up.

Reps. Sam Graves, a Tarkio Republican; Emanuel Cleaver, a Kansas City Democrat; and Mark Alford, a Lake Winnebago Republican sponsored a bill Wednesday called the Pony Up Act. It would allow customers to seek a reimbursement from the U.S. Postal Service if they get late fees on a bill the post office failed to deliver on time.

“Late deliveries aren’t just a frustration; they cost people money,” Graves said in a statement. “If a bill shows up late, you ultimately pay it late and that comes with an additional fee. For many small municipalities, they depend on bills getting paid to operate. That can’t happen if it never shows up on time. If the Postal Service can’t get their act together and get bills delivered on time, then they should pony up and pay the late fee.”

The bill comes after lawmakers have repeatedly implored the U.S. Postal Service to make improvements to mail delivery in the Kansas City area. Cleaver, Graves and Alford have all written letters to the post office demanding audits and changes, as have Rep. Sharice Davids, a Johnson County Democrat, and Sens. Josh Hawley and Eric Schmitt of Missouri, and Sens. Roger Marshall and Jerry Moran, of Kansas.

An audit of the U.S. Postal Service in Kansas City, prompted by a complaint by Hawley, found that the largest issue affecting timely delivery is staffing. When the audit was released in August, the post office was down 77 employees in the Kansas City area, even though the system said it was only down 44 employees.

Cleaver has been critical of Postmaster General Louis DeJoy, a former logistics CEO who was appointed during the administration of former President Donald Trump. DeJoy has spoken about his efforts to make the U.S. Postal Service self-sufficient, but it has continued to struggle, even after Congress passed a bill injecting money into the troubled institution.

“Hardworking families, Missouri small businesses, and local municipalities shouldn’t have to pay the price for the failures of Postmaster General DeJoy and his disastrous Delivering for America Plan—which has led to a substantial rise in complaints about the postal service,” Cleaver said.

While President Joe Biden has now appointed the majority of the members of the board, they haven’t attempted to remove DeJoy from his position.

Biden’s administration does not appear particularly concerned about mail delays. When asked about it earlier this month, White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre indicated the issue wasn’t on her radar.

“The President always wants to make sure that every agency, every department in this administration – obviously, in the federal government – operates at its best capacity, right? At full capacity,” Jean-Pierre said. “And so, that’s what we want to see.”