Following support from U.S. Senator Jon Tester, the United States Postal Service (USPS) today opened the brand new Big Sky Post Office. The new facility is built for the needs of the Big Sky community and is projected to improve mail service, which includes additional PO boxes and larger facilities.
“After hearing concerns from locals in Big Sky, I was proud to support the effort to get the resources necessary to establish this post office, and today I am glad to see this project finally begin to serve the community,” said Tester. “This state-of-the-art new post office was built to meet the needs of the community, which means more PO boxes, improved mail service, and facilities that are better fit for folks in Big Sky. This is a huge step forward for the community, and I look forward to seeing this new post office serve Big Sky for years to come.”
In 2022, Tester secured a $229,000 per year increase in funding for the Big Sky Post Office to support continued services in the face of the area’s rapid population growth, bringing annual funding to $547,000. The increase in funding eliminated the Post Office’s reliance on local tax dollars, freeing up approximately $64,300 in Local Resort Tax dollars to support the growing community.
Tester has been Montana’s leading champion holding the USPS accountable. After Tester repeatedly called on USPS to halt plans to move Missoula’s Processing and Distribution Center (P&DC) outgoing processing operations to Spokane, Postmaster Louis DeJoy responded by announcing earlier this year that he would pause all processing center consolidation plans.
Tester fought for months to force USPS to halt their consolidation plans in Montana and across the country. In February, Tester urged DeJoy to halt the United States Postal Service’s Mail Processing Facility Review that could result in the relocation of Missoula’s P&DC outgoing mail processing operations to Spokane, Washington. In March, following an initial decision to make the move permanent, and after hearing from countless veterans frustrated with USPS’s untimely delivery of prescription medications, Tester called on the USPS Board of Governors to work towards improved postal service in Montana. And in May, Tester led a bipartisan letter to the USPS Board of Governors calling for the USPS to halt all consolidation plans.
Tester has introduced his Protecting Access to Rural Carriers for Every Location (PARCEL) Act – legislation to prohibit unnecessary and harmful consolidation of mail processing operations nationwide – which would ensure USPS cannot reverse course on their decision to halt consolidation plans in Missoula and across Montana.