COLUMBUS, Ohio — Several viewers have reached out to 10TV with complaints about mail being missing or late and they want to know what the issue is.
Connie Parker and Jeff Fields live more than 20 miles apart, one on the outskirts of Upper Arlington, the other in Pickerington. Both reached out to 10TV with the same complaints.
Fields is disabled and has a tough time moving, he relies on the postal service to get his medicine.
“I got a notification that it was coming and it just didn't come so I panicked,” Fields said.
Parker went two weeks recently without a single piece of mail and some mail she's still missing.
“We are waiting on my husband's insurance package, which was a pretty big package that they were sending, we still haven't gotten it,” she said.
There might be changes on the horizon as legislators are pushing for a big investment into the postal service.
"The mail is very late these days. All of a sudden, it's become much later than it's ever been,” said Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-New York.
Senator Schumer says he's pushing for a $50 billion postal reform bill. He's hoping for a vote this week.
Among other things, the bill would end a requirement that the USPS finance retirees' health benefits for 75 years in advance, which has driven the service into debt, according to the Associated Press.
"Look let's face it: the post office is the most important and hallowed institution in American life. To starve it, to squeeze it, so it can do its job makes no sense," the Senator said.
10TV reached out to the postal service in Ohio, asking for an interview or comment on the staffing shortages but did not get an answer by the time this story was published.
This is not 10TV’s first time covering the postal service’s mail delay. Last month USPS said they were feeling the effects of COVID-19.
"Our workforce, like others, is not immune to the human impacts of the ongoing Coronavirus pandemic. We will continue flexing our available resources to match the workload and we are proud of the efforts of postal employees as they define essential public service every day," USPS said in a statement.