An unknown amount of Pennsylvania state agency mail was never sent to residents, officials say
The state quickly ended its contract with the vendor upon discovering it "had been failing to deliver Commonwealth mail to constituents," a spokesperson said.
HARRISBURG — An unknown amount of mail from Pennsylvania state agencies to residents has gone undelivered, Gov. Josh Shapiro’s administration discovered this week.
The Pennsylvania Department of General Services said in a statement Friday that it ended its contract with an unidentified vendor that pre-sorts state agency mail before delivering it to the U.S. Postal Service to be sent to residents around the state. The department discovered in the last 48 hours that the vendor “had been failing to deliver Commonwealth mail to constituents,” said Paul Vezzetti, a spokesperson for the department.
The state is still determining how much and what type of mail was not delivered to Pennsylvania’s residents. It was unclear Friday why the vendor failed to send the state’s mail, where the mail was located when it was not in the state’s possession, how long the mail went unsent, and how the failure was not identified sooner.
The unsent mail could prove to be a major headache for Shapiro’s administration, depending on the magnitude of the issue and which state communications were not delivered to residents.
After discovering the backlog, the Department of General Services rapidly hired a new vendor to sort and deliver the unsent mail “as quickly as possible,” Vezzetti said. The unsent mail has already been transferred to the new vendor and the state estimates that it will be mailed by early next week.
The unsent mail from unspecified state agencies could include critical communications relating to state services, such as health benefits or food assistance, among other potential communications. State agencies send communications by mail about an individual’s eligibility for services or benefits, renewals and appeals, and whether a person is due to appear at a hearing about that eligibility, and more.
Vezzetti declined on Friday to confirm which agencies were impacted by the stalled mail, or to name the vendor that had been fired.
Pennsylvania lawmakers last month ended a 135-day-long state budget impasse that required counties, schools and social service organizations to take out loans or limit their services during the protracted budget fight.
The state is now taking steps to “carefully assess and mitigate impacts” of the mail delay and adjust deadlines for impacted residents.
Staff writer Ximena Conde contributed to this article.