Louis DeJoy, the head of the U.S. Postal Service, intends to step down, the federal agency said Tuesday, after a nearly five-year tenure marked by the coronavirus pandemic, surges in mail-in election ballots and efforts to stem losses through cost and service cuts.
In a Monday letter, Postmaster General DeJoy asked the Postal Service Board of Governors to begin looking for his successor.
“As you know, I have worked tirelessly to lead the 640,000 men and women of the Postal Service in accomplishing an extraordinary transformation,” he wrote. “We have served the American people through an unprecedented pandemic and through a period of high inflation and sensationalized politics.”
DeJoy took the helm of the postal service in the summer of 2020 during President Donald Trump’s first term. He was a Republican donor who owned a logistics business before taking office and was the first postmaster general in nearly two decades who was not a career postal employee.
DeJoy developed a 10-year plan to modernize operations and stem losses. He previously said that postal customers should get used to “uncomfortable” rate hikes as the postal service seeks to stabilize its finances and become more self-sufficient.
The plan calls for making the mail delivery system more efficient and less costly by consolidating mail processing centers. Critics, including members of Congress from several states, have said the first consolidations slowed service and that further consolidations could particularly hurt rural mail delivery.
DeJoy has disputed that and told a U.S. House subcommittee during a contentious September hearing that the Postal Service had embarked on long-overdue investments in “ratty” facilities and making other changes to create “a Postal Service for the future” that delivered mail more quickly.
DeJoy also oversaw the postal service during two presidential elections that saw spikes in mail-in ballots.
Ahead of the 2020 presidential election, a federal judge limited one of the postal service’s cost-cutting practices after finding it contributed to delays in mail delivery. DeJoy had restricted overtime payments for postal workers and stopped the agency’s longtime practice of allowing late and extra truck deliveries in the summer of 2020. The moves reduced costs but meant some mail was left behind to be delivered the following day.
DeJoy said in his letter that he was committed to being “as helpful as possible in facilitating a transition.”
The Associated Press contributed to this report.