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The U.S. Postal Service continues to struggle to get mail delivered in a timely manner after nearly five years since the problem became acute.

While members of Congress continue to call for change, it appears to be coming slowly. A recent in-depth report by the Rochester Post-Bulletin showed severe staffing shortages, unbearable overtime for employees and, more important, a system that seems unresponsive to media inquiries leaving the public in the dark.

Staffing is down at the Rochester postal service by 17% compared to 2017, while the number of mailboxes and addresses has gone up by 3,000, according to the Post-Bulletin. When a carrier calls in sick, their route is often not delivered.

The Free Press has also attempted to shed light on the problems in the Mankato area. Though they don’t seem as bad as before (in some cases Free Press newspapers were delivered several days after publication), the silence from the post office is deafening.

Sen. Amy Klobuchar has called on Postmaster Louis DeJoy — a Trump appointee who once called for removing mailboxes from prime locations — to fix the problem by allowing hiring flexibility to attract workers and stabilize staffing. Sen. Tina Smith told the Post-Bulletin she would “keep pushing to ensure that they reliably deliver mail.”

DeJoy wrote in a letter to postal employees in August: “Improving our employees’ experience and providing a stable and empowered workforce remain at the forefront of our DFA (Delivering for America) plan. Our bond with our employees has never been more important than it is today.”

This kind of verbiage produces no results. Carriers are overworked in many locations, and no amount of good feelings from above can change that. We’re not confident DeJoy has the answer or is even the right person to tackle the problem.

Congress approved $50 billion in funding for the post office last year and released the quasi-independent agency from an onerous pension obligation that was threatening its solvency.

In Rochester, an anonymous source at the post office provided the newspaper with employee schedules that showed a significant decline in employee numbers and exorbitant overtime.

Millions of Americans still rely on the post office not only for holiday packages, but also for daily necessities of life, like prescriptions and the ability to pay one’s bills in a timely manner.

The post office owes the American people an explanation of the solutions it is pursuing not just nationally but also at the local level. The public relations response from the post office is inadequate. People deserve to know if their packages are going to be delivered on time.

And if the problems can’t be fixed immediately, emergency measures should be implemented. Doing nothing is not acceptable.

— Mankato Free Press, Nov. 17