Frustration Grows in Pine Plains Area as USPS Struggles with Delivery Delays

Residents of Pine Plains and neighboring communities have reported delays and missing deliveries from the United States Postal Service. The Pine Plains post office, which manages five delivery routes — two in Pine Plains, two in Stanford and one in Ancramdale — is dealing with staffing shortages and operational inefficiencies that disrupt what residents and local officials say was once a reliable service.

“We can’t get enough staff to do the work,” said a local postal worker who spoke to the Herald on the condition of anonymity. They described a typical workday, arriving at the post office at dawn and leaving well into the evening, often working 12 hour shifts. “We’re operating like it’s the holiday season, all of the time.”

The worker said that four employees currently sort up to 1,700 packages daily for delivery across the five routes. However, only two regular couriers are servicing these routes. To operate efficiently, they said, the post office would need two additional couriers and four part-time fill-ins to cover for illness. Since last year, the post office has struggled with staffing due to two retirements and the transfer of a long-term employee to a different location. As a result, it has had to rely on assistance from neighboring offices, but these workers are unfamiliar with local routes. “We’re trying. Tell people we need help,” the worker said. “If you know anyone looking for a job, tell them to apply.”

Staffing Challenges and the Amazon Effect 

“It’s an essential service. And if it’s broken, it needs to be fixed,” said Stanford Town Supervisor Wendy Burton. “The truth is that they’re terribly understaffed.” She noted the difficult conditions for new employees: “There are tests they need to take in order to apply and the pay is not great.” 

Pine Plains postmaster Michael Pantaline, who oversees staffing for the post offices in Pine Plains, Stanfordville, Ancramdale and Bangall, declined to be interviewed for this story, and instead referred questions to a USPS media liaison.

As of Thursday, the U.S. Postal Service website lists one job opening in Pine Plains for a rural carrier associate. Applicants must pass a background check and an exam. They must also be available on an as-needed basis with a varied schedule and possess a valid state driver’s license, a safe driving record and at least two years of unsupervised driving experience with passenger cars or larger vehicles.

The job pays $20.38 per hour, which is more than the $16 minimum wage in Dutchess County but $4.34 less than the approximate living wage for one adult with no children, according to MIT’s Living Wage Calculator. The living wage accounts for housing, food and other necessary expenses.

The position is described as a “non-career position, which may lead to a career position.” After completing one year without a break in service of more than five days, employees may also be eligible for health insurance under the Federal Employees Health Benefits Program, as well as dental and vision insurance, according to the listing. 

“I don’t know how long it will take to fill that position, but I have noticed, even at my own residence, that the mail has come extremely late,” said Pine Plains Town Supervisor Brian Walsh. “But individual residents in town shouldn’t take their frustrations out on the employees at the post office. They’re doing their best.”

The problem of understaffing is compounded by the added burden for postal service employees of handling package deliveries for companies like Amazon, which pay the USPS to carry out its “last-mile” deliveries — the final stage of transporting goods from a distribution center to a customer’s doorstep.

The postal worker estimated that out of the thousand packages Pine Plains receives daily, up to half come from Amazon. Additionally, Pine Plains workers sort and deliver packages for UPS and DHL delivery services. 

Branden Baribeau, an Amazon spokesperson, responded to concerns that Amazon is a part of the problem. “The USPS is one of several carriers we work with to get customers’ orders to them as quickly as possible,” he told the Herald. “And like all of our partnerships, our work with the USPS is collaborative — meaning they review and approve our forecasts. We recognize that like us, other major retailers, small businesses and the communities they serve rely on the local USPS to deliver, which is why we’ll continue to collaborate on package volume each week and adjust as needed to ensure our customers have the delivery experiences they expect.”

Growing Community Frustration

Joseph Salvia is a Stanfordville resident who has experienced problems with mail delivery. “Contacting the Pine Plains post office is an impossible task since the phone is never answered the numerous times I have called during the 9-to-5 workday,” he wrote in an email to the Herald. 

“I’m painfully aware of the situation because so many of our citizens have either written or called me about it,” Burton said. “I think it’s a very serious problem. The post office is an essential service, people rely on it for bills and medication. It’s simply not OK. I believe we should be contacting our Congresspeople to get the message out.”

In fact, one Stanfordville resident took action by doing just that.

The resident, who spoke to the Herald on the condition of anonymity, said they had received 30 years of reliable service from the USPS until this March, when the post office suddenly stopped delivering packages to their address. “I wouldn’t get my mail on time, and delivery became very erratic, with packages missing for days,” they said. “I would sometimes have to drive 20 miles from post office to post office and back to my house, all just for a package.” 

The resident said that after repeatedly being ignored by the post office, they filed complaints with supervisors, to no avail: “I followed all of the rules. I went through the postmaster, but that didn’t work. I called the post office and filed a complaint. I wrote several letters. The people at the next level up, instead of really looking into it, would just ask the postmaster, What is going on here? Nothing happened.”

Frustrated with the lack of progress, this resident took their concerns to the federal level, contacting the office of Rep. Pat Ryan. They compiled a detailed report of their experiences, including photographs and measurements of their driveway to show it aligns with USPS rural delivery guidelines. The resident’s efforts culminated in an official apology from the USPS and a promise to restore reliable service, which they said has finally been achieved. “What I would tell my neighbors is that if you write, it can get taken care of,” they said. 

Ryan attributes part of the problem to decisions at the national level. “Postal leadership down in Washington failed to listen to our community, and because of that, we are seeing customer service issues, missed mail, stolen mail, and overwhelmed postal workers across the Hudson Valley,” he told the Herald. 

In addition to contacting Congress, Burton suggested that area residents rent P.O. boxes in Pine Plains as a short-term solution. “That eliminates the need for someone to drive past your house at 9 p.m. with four days of mail,” she said. There are 1,139 P.O. boxes at the Pine Plains post office. Employees would not disclose how many remain available for rent.

USPS Response 

Mark Lawrence, a strategic communications specialist at the USPS, responded to the Herald’s request for information on Thursday. Although he did not specifically address the situation at the Pine Plains post office, he provided the following statement via email:

“At times, service can be disrupted due to employee availability for reasons such as illness, personal leave, retirements, and other factors that may impact mail deliveries on some routes. In such cases, the Postal Service will do the following to ensure deliveries continue:

• Authorize overtime to allow employees to work the time necessary to deliver mail.
• Expand mail deliveries to earlier in the morning and later in the evening.
• Use additional carriers from nearby offices when necessary to maintain mail deliveries.
• Hire additional personnel. To view available positions, visit about.usps.com/careers. Job postings are updated frequently, so job seekers should check the website often.

We recommend customers sign up for Informed Delivery. It’s a free feature that enables consumers to preview their mail and manage their packages scheduled to arrive soon. For more information, go to informeddelivery.usps.com.

To share general concerns, complaints, or compliments, customers can call our toll-free number at 800-ASK-USPS (275-8777) at any time.”

At the Pine Plains post office on Thursday, a man exited his car, a bundle of documents, envelopes and stamps in hand. “I don’t expect packages to arrive on time,” he said. “But I pray that they will.”