U.S. Rep. Jefferson Shreve, R-Indiana, center, meets with U.S. Postal Service officials during a briefing before a tour of the Indianapolis Regional Processing and Distribution Center in April. Shreve’s office reported a 21% increase in service times since delivery issues were widely reported across central and southern Indiana earlier this year.
Submitted photo
By Noah Crenshaw | Daily Journal
ncrenshaw@dailyjournal.net
For The Republic
INDIANAPOLIS — Service times have improved at the U.S. Postal Service’s Indianapolis distribution center after intervention from local lawmakers, including Congressman Jefferson Shreve.
Since the opening of a new USPS Regional Processing and Distribution Center on Brookville Road in Indianapolis last year, Central Indiana residents have made complaints about delays in mail distribution. Many of these complaints were given to Congressional lawmakers, including Shreve, an Indianapolis Republican who represents Johnson County and the rest of Indiana’s 6th District.
From the first day he was sworn in on Jan. 3, Shreve’s office was hearing from a lot of constituents about mail and package delays, he told the Daily Journal in an interview.
“Part of [my] work is service. The Postal Service is federal, and so it’s our job as federal representatives to respond to those challenges,” Shreve said. “My background is in business; I think of constituents as customers. We have a customer service issue, and it was clearly a pattern, even though I just came into this role early in the year.”
In December 2024, the on-time mail service performance rate was 72%. Fast-forward six-to-seven months later, the on-time mail service performance rate is now 93% — a 21% increase, Shreve’s office announced earlier this week.
“I’m not declaring a victory lap here. I’m just reporting progress,” Shreve said. “And I didn’t set out to fix the Postal Service. I set out to help fix a problem in Central Indiana, and I’m just trying to take care of the customer.”
After the complaints were made to Shreve’s office earlier this year, he reached out to his colleagues in the House, where he discovered the service issues were a problem “across the board” in Central and Southern Indiana. So he spearheaded a February letter from Indiana’s Congressional delegation, comprised of lawmakers from the House and Senate, that pressed for action from the U.S. Postmaster General.
Shreve was later able to go inside the massive sorting facility in Indianapolis in April, after which postal officials acknowledged that planning and implementation of their plans for the large facility were the root of the problem, according to his office.
“My message back to them repeatedly was ‘OK, I understand you stood up this big consolidated distribution center, but we’ve got to get the service levels back to an acceptable standpoint,’” Shreve said. “One of your takeaways as you’re moving around with postal service workers is they’re proud. They have a proud tradition, and there are a lot of good people that are working out there, and a lot of really good letter carriers. This new Congressman isn’t trying to beat up on the postal workers, but we’ve got to deliver for the customers, and they want that too.”
Since then, Shreve has received information on the levels at the facility. In the last update he received, which is through June 27, the service levels increased by 21%.
The USPS also noted the progress made in a statement to the Daily Journal.
“The Postal Service undertook a great challenge to deploy our operational strategies under the Delivering for America plan. The improved performance at the Indianapolis RPDC and across Indiana represents progress in the life of the plan and our commitment to upgrade facilities and improve service to our customers,” said Susan Wright, a USPS spokesperson.
Wright also noted that customers can view weekly service performance in their area on a public dashboard by going to spm.usps.com. The dashboard shows that on-time delivery performance rates across all Johnson County zip codes have increased by 20.6% between December 2024 and July 2025.
Though the rates have now increased, the work is not done. But Shreve says Hoosiers are a lot closer to service times that postal users should be experiencing.
“They’ve got a reasonable expectation of reliable, timely delivery, and we’ve gotten a lot closer to where we have been and where we need to be,” he said.
Shreve doesn’t expect the rate to ever be 100%, but if the USPS gets over 95%, its “meaningful progress.” He does expect constituent complaints to continue to decline as they have over the last six weeks, he said.
He also noted that a new Postmaster General, David Steiner, started on July 15. Shreve wants to see what Steiner can get done, but is grateful for the headway that’s been made, he said.
“Our office will keep our foot on the gas, and that’s what we’re here for — constituent services,” Shreve said. “Part of the mission of our Congressional office — whether it’s work with the IRS, veterans benefits, postal service issues, visa and integration issues — customer service is an important part of our mission. This is one element of service that I want to report to our constituents on.”
Shreve’s Greenwood office can be reached at 317-399-3333 or at shreve.house.gov.
