Ever wondered where your late letters, magazines and newspapers go? Take a gander below:
That photo comes from a little report we call "NO-AR-11-008," or an audit of the Richmond Processing and Distribution Center. After multiple complaints—including plenty from local residents—the office of the U.S. Postal Service Inspector General released a 22-page report that details just how rapidly mail service in Virginia deteriorated following a 2009 facilities consolidation.
"Delayed mail volume rose from 22.6 million pieces to 54.2 million over a two year period," reads the report. "This represented an increase in delayed mail volume of more than 139 percent, while similar-sized facilities decreased delays by 3 percent over the same period." The report concludes that delays were caused by "inadequate staffing and supervision, low mail throughput on machines, and failure to consistently color-code arriving mail." The U.S. Postal Service closed Charlottesville’s own Processing and Distrbution Center in 2010.
Auditors tabulated the following totals for the Richmond Processing and Distribution Center in Fiscal Year 2010:
- 156 million pieces of total delayed mail, ranking it fourth among the sites
- 3.1 million pieces of delayed first-class mail, ranking it eighth among the sites
- 10.6 million pieces of delayed periodicals, ranking it third among the sites
- 142 million pieces of delayed standard mail
