Staffing shortages in Waterbury among post office problems across Vermont disrupting deliveries and inconveniencing residents.

By Oliver Stavri

Mary Spencer ordered an important medication through the mail in March. When neither her package, nor any other mail, arrived for more than a week, the 71-year-old Duxbury resident visited the post office in Waterbury while she was in town and picked up her medication and other correspondence.

Once there, Spencer asked post office employees when she could expect mail delivery at home. The Waterbury post office needed to hire a rural carrier for her route, she learned. Until then, Spencer would have to travel to town to retrieve her letters and packages. A month later, Spencer said she was receiving mail maybe twice a week.

Spencer is among many Vermonters who have missed the timely delivery of medications, financial documents, bills and urgent legal notices sent via the U.S. Postal Service in recent months. Staffing shortages in Waterbury are among post office problems across Vermont that have disrupted deliveries and inconvenienced residents.

In Montpelier, federal officials recently chose a new post office location — nearly 10 months after damage from major statewide flooding left the downtown post office shuttered. The postal service earlier this year announced that it has begun processing mail that’s leaving Vermont in Hartford, Connecticut, shifting some of the workload away from sorting facilities in White River Junction and Essex Junction, according to Seven Days newspaper. And in Cabot, a temporary post office closure has forced residents in and around the rural area to drive even farther to collect their mail.

In late February, one of Waterbury’s three carriers on rural routes left and the postal service has struggled to fill it, according to Stephen Doherty, a postal service spokesman in Boston who emailed his response to questions. The Waterbury office recently hired for one of its open city routes and two rural carrier positions, he wrote.

“It’s no secret that unemployment is historically low right now, making it difficult for local companies to hire and retain good help,” Doherty wrote. “Unfortunately, the postal service is not exempt from that dilemma.”

On-and-off mud season conditions from January through March didn’t help either as many local gravel roads were posted for local traffic only and, as Doherty put it, posed “delivery challenges that are unique to this area.”

Crossett Hill in Duxbury, where Spencer has lived for 25 years, is on one of the three Waterbury rural routes. Driving on dirt roads there is difficult, especially during mud season, but mail arrived regularly every day until the COVID-19 pandemic, she recalled. Since then, delivery has become more sporadic. Spencer said she and her neighbors loved their longtime carrier, who alerted residents in a Front Porch Forum message that she transferred to the East Montpelier post office to be closer to home. 

“I didn’t realize it meant that then there was no one to cover our route, but apparently that was the case,” Spencer said, recalling the delays in recent weeks. “We really had two weeks where we didn’t get any mail.”

Spencer said she understands the reasons for delays but would like to know when mail isn’t coming so she can plan to get it herself when she goes to town to swim. She has always appreciated the carriers who navigate their rural road to bring needed mail, she said.

“They have been very good,” Spencer said. “It’s no reflection on them.”

Few but dedicated carriers

Jon Whitley started carrying mail part time for Waterbury in 2012 after his U.S. Army deployment in Afghanistan. Now a full-time postal employee, he delivers fewer letters and more packages, particularly from online retail giant Amazon, which accounts for 90% of his daily package volume, he said.

Whitley agreed to an interview to share his own views and clarified he was not speaking for the postal service. He said the uptick in Amazon shipments under the retailer’s contract with the federal service has put extra demands on carriers. “They’re making part-timers work, per contract, on Sundays and holidays, minus Christmas and New Year’s,” he said, “so that burns a lot of people out.”  

The work is arduous, he added, and starting pay is comparable to an entry-level position in a less-strenuous environment. The residents where he delivers, though, make the effort worthwhile, he said. “The better relationship we have with the people on the route, it’s more motivation and makes you feel good about it,” he said.

Theresa George, 63, who lives on Blush Hill in Waterbury, said the direct connection to a local post office and local employees is valuable. “You talk to Waterbury when you call,” she said. The local problems, however, stem from national management of the postal service under Postmaster General Louis DeJoy, she said.

Congressional delegation relays frustrations

Many Vermonters have written to their representatives in the Senate and House of Representatives, sharing their frustrations.

“The consistent failure of the U.S. Postal Service national management to communicate with and deliver for the people of Vermont is incredibly frustrating — from Waterbury to Burlington, Montpelier to White River Junction, and across our state,” Sen. Peter Welch, D-Vt., said in a statement forwarded from his spokesperson, Aaron White. “It is a symptom of Postmaster General DeJoy’s refusal to engage with the communities that have watched this essential service rapidly deteriorate during his tenure.”

On April 1, Vermont’s Congressional members issued a joint press release after the postal service announced its plan to replace the Montpelier post office. They praised the move but maintained their criticism of DeJoy’s leadership.

“It should not take the better part of a year, heroic grassroots efforts, and constant work by the delegation and state leaders for Postmaster General DeJoy to do his job – especially after a catastrophic natural disaster,” read the statement from Welch, along with Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., and Rep. Becca Balint, D-Vt.

In their statement, the lawmakers emphasized the essential role of the postal service for individuals, families and small businesses in Vermont: “They need a functional USPS, not only to mail letters and packages, but for the delivery of important documents, like their social security checks, the delivery of lifesaving prescription drugs, and to pay their bills on time. This is especially true in rural areas.”

Back on Crossett Hill in Duxbury, Spencer’s neighbor, Anne Hutchinson, posted some better news May 1 on social media that she had learned from the local post office: Regular delivery was set to resume on their route that Saturday. 

Oliver Stavri reported this story on assignment from The Waterbury Roundabout. The Community News Service is a program in which University of Vermont students work with professional editors to provide content for local news outlets at no cost.