Audit finds staffing, other issues at Richmond facility continue to hamper Northeastern N.C. and Outer Banks mail

A newly-released audit of the U.S. Postal Service’s Richmond-area facility that processes mail for northeastern North Carolina found continued issues that are impacting delivery.

One of the main problems identified in the 31-page report was that the Sandston, Virginia, facility ranks in the bottom 10th percentile in employee attendance across the postal service, and that “employees were not concerned about the consequences.”

Inconsistent and inefficient mail processing was also blamed for delays that continue to plague customers along the Outer Banks and inland areas, from packages that have bounced between processing centers and individual post offices, to bills, checks and holiday cards that were lost or returned damaged or destroyed.

In July 2023, the facility became the first in the nation to transition from a local to a regional postal hub as part of the U.S. postmaster general’s 10-year plan to modernize the postal service.

Around that same time, residents and business across ZIP codes that start with “279” began reporting numerous issues with mail being slow or missing altogether that has continued ever since.

Previously, mail from northeastern North Carolina was processed at a facility in Rocky Mount.

Now it all goes through the same facility that handles most of Virginia from the Chesapeake Bay to the Shenandoah Valley.

An initial report released in April 2024 following a fact-finding mission showed chronic understaffing, misplaced letters and packages, and an overall poorly executed initial transition of the Sandston facility to a Regional Processing and Distribution Center.

Inspectors who visited the facility in October 2023 found multiple instances of Richmond postal employees “not engaged with work,” including one staffer sleeping on a forklift; mail that was over two months old that was wet and left in a container in the truck yard; sorting practices that resulted in lost mail, packages sitting on the floor, and manual sorting methods used for “machinable mail”; and Priority Express mail mixed in with packages containing hazardous materials.

According to the inspector general’s April 2024 report, “the challenges caused the Postal Service to incur additional labor and transportation costs, totaling over $8 million in questioned costs over the first four months of operations.”

“The challenges also contributed to a decrease in service performance for the Richmond region that continued four months after launch,” the inspector general office said.

The latest audit, conducted between October and December 2024 and released last week, found that while the Richmond RPDC has stabilized operations since its launch, issues such as staffing shortages, transportation inefficiencies, and inconsistent and inefficient mail processing are ongoing.

“While the Postal Service has improved service performance in the region since January 2024, scores remain below targets,” auditors said. “However, service for many classes of mail is in line with nationwide averages.”

The report states the center’s operational struggles have continued to cause delays and even non-delivery of items, particularly First-Class Mail and packages, and failed to meet service targets for multiple other types of mail, with Priority Mail Express experiencing significant delays.

Four major points were made in the report that were key factors in those delays, and were accompanied by photos of issues found by auditors.

Collection mail often arrived late after sorting operations were completed.
Collection mail was not properly placarded or separated, resulting in additional handling at the RPDC.
Mail was left at the RPDC because dock personnel did not consolidate containers to ensure mail fit on outgoing trailers.
The RPDC did not always complete processing operations on time, which delayed the mail.

In addition, employee absenteeism remains a pressing issue at Sandston.

On average, 19% of scheduled employees do not report to work, forcing the center to rely on overtime and temporary staffing to meet demand.

“This shortfall equates to about 123 career employee absences on any given day,” the report states. “For FY 2024, the Richmond facility was eight percentage points below the national goal and ranked in the bottom tenth percentile for processing plant employee availability nationwide (243 out of 264).”

Most of the unscheduled absenteeism was due to leave without pay, absence without leave, and sick leave, according to auditors.

Low employee availability impacts operations and results in higher operational costs due to increased overtime needed to cover absent employees, the auditor said.

“Additionally, supervision is less effective as supervisors are forced to perform craft tasks rather than their own to meet operational demands,” the report stated.

“We noted employee availability was an issue in our prior audit. However, we did not make recommendations to address this, as several other reports provided recommendations on efforts to increase employee availability and decrease unscheduled leave nationwide,” auditors said.

And continued instability in leadership at the facility was also cited as a major factor in overall performance.

“While acting leaders have worked to stabilize operations since our last audit, the Postal Service has been unable to establish permanent leadership at the Richmond RPDC, 14 months post launch, as three of the four senior leadership positions remain vacant,” the auditors said.

That included the lack of a permanent plant manager, and other key management positions have only been filled on a rotating basis.

The frequent leadership changes have contributed to inconsistent operational oversight, the report noted.

Auditors also said transportation schedules remain misaligned with facility operations, leading to excessive late and extra trips.

““Approximately 14 months after the Richmond RPDC’s activation, our analysis shows that transportation performance indicators have not improved but instead have declined significantly since our prior report,” the auditors said.

Over $2.3 million in additional transportation costs were recorded due to inefficient scheduling, the report stated.

Furthermore, the Richmond RPDC failed to consistently conduct required trailer scans, leading to gaps in mail tracking and visibility.

This lack of scanning compliance affects both internal operations and customers trying to track their packages, the report said.

The audit recommended six corrective actions, including filling leadership vacancies, improving employee attendance enforcement, and optimizing transportation schedules.

While the Postal Service agreed to implement most of the recommendations, it disagreed with some assessments related to transportation efficiency, arguing that current measures are within acceptable operational ranges.

Click here to read the full report

Postmaster General Louis DeJoy, who previously ran a shipping business in North Carolina that had contracts with the Postal Service, has faced criticism since his appointment in 2020.

In March 2021, DeJoy issued a 10-year plan called “Delivering for America” to stabilize the finances of the Postal Service by slowing first class mail delivery, optimizing transportation networks, cutting post office hours, and raising prices.

The plan assumed Congress would relieve the USPS of the requirement to pre-pay retiree health care costs, which with DeJoy’s urging it did with the Postal Service Reform Act of 2022.

It also includes the pending implementation across the country of the changes first made at the Richmond regional center.

USPS has also lowered its on-time delivery goals for fiscal year 2025 to 80% for some Postal Service offerings, igniting further criticism from lawmakers.

During a House Oversight hearing in December, DeJoy at one point went so far as to cover his ears to not hear the critique of his management.

C-SPAN reported Dejoy pushed back on the criticism saying, “Republicans and Democrats are significantly responsible for the condition of the United States Postal Service when I arrived here.”

The office of Rep. Don Davis (D, NC-1) said he was not immediately available for comment at the time of publication. Rep. Greg Murphy’s (R, NC-3) office had not responded to a request.