CLEVELAND — Rep. Shontel Brown expects the new Postal Service Reform Act will affect Ohioans who depend on the U.S. Postal Service.

What You Need To Know

• The bipartisan bill now awaits a signature from President Joe Biden to become law


• The bill tries to save the USPS money and maintain services


• Sandra Noble is a Warrensville Heights resident who believes something needs to be done

Postal union leaders joined Brown Thursday as she discussed the new bill aimed at reforming the USPS.

The Postal Service Reform Act makes several significant changes, including eliminating a requirement that the postal service pre-fund its retiree health benefits. Instead, it would require future retirees to enroll in medicare.

Leaders hope that will save the USPS a significant amount of money. It would also require the postal service to keep six-day-a-week mail deliveries and become more transparent through an online dashboard that would give weekly performance data by zip code.  

“I think there’s always room for improvement, right?” Brown said. “But I think we need to take this first step to see how well we fair. The industry had reported that they could be cashed strapped as early as 2024 and so this will give them much needed relief to the tunes of 10s of billions of dollars.”

Sandra Noble was a constituent who joined Brown at the press conference. She said she noticed the mail not delivering as much as usual back in December. With her husband sending out checks to pay bills, she called her congressional representative for help.

“The pattern was we would go almost four to five days with no mail, which you knew wasn’t to be because you get your circulars every Tuesday,” she said. “So that’s when it really got our attention and we decided to do something about it.”

Brown said 2020 was the 14th consecutive year the post office reported a net annual loss. When this bill passed, the postal service saw a net loss of $4.9 billion in 2021 and $9.2 billion in 2020. Brown says she’s in contact with USPS leaders in the state, to fill staffing shortages that also contribute to slower delivery times. 

“The postal service also says it is continually recruiting and hiring in Ohio and district leadership is working to shortening the onboard time, new hires, making sure that they can get to work as quickly as possible,” Brown said.