One thing that TPEA takes great pride in is our accessibility to our members. We are reachable by phone, email, website, and postal mail. We offer our members the option to pay online, via payroll deduction, ERS annuity deduction, or by physical checks. Our goal is to ensure that everyone can reach us by whatever means is most comfortable for them. Unfortunately, we have seen a fundamental breakdown in one of our methods of communication and we want to address it head on.
Since November 2023, we have been unable to access mail sent to our physical address via Business Reply Mail (BRM). BRM is mail that is pre-paid by a business. For example:
- We mail renewal notices to our members and include a pre-paid BRM envelope to save them the cost of a stamp and make it easier for members to return their membership renewal form to us.
- We also used these BRM envelopes in a bulk mailing in October 2023 to the Employees Retirement System (ERS) retirees. To date, we have not received many of the reply envelopes to that mailing yet have heard from numerous people that they mailed us their applications and payments.
- We sent test letters using the BRM and, to date, have not received any of those letters either.
The post office located at Chimney Corners in northwest Austin processes the mail for TPEA’s physical address. They have been unwilling to provide us with information about the breakdown in service and have ignored numerous requests for assistance from multiple people. We have escalated the issue to the post office manager and the Postmaster and have received no response or business reply mail. We are escalating the matter with legislators to try and remedy this issue.
In the last month, we have begun to experience the same issue with our post office box. While we receive regular stamped mail, we are not receiving any of our Business Reply Mail. Once again, we have reached out to numerous people and managers at the station with no response and no remedy for the situation. This means that we are not receiving any of the renewal payments that have been sent in for the months of February and March.
This situation not only hurts the TPEA brand, but it directly impacts our members. It is unacceptable to us, and we’re doing everything we can to fix this issue.
How We Are Proceeding
As things currently stand, we cannot offer pre-paid Business Reply Mail envelopes for mailings to TPEA. Until this situation is resolved, we have edited our renewal notice mailings to include a pre-printed envelope with space for one regular stamp. We will also continue to offer online payment methods for all members that wish to utilize them.
We will be sending a second mailing to those ERS retirees that received the mailing in October with information regarding this issue and how to join if they so wish.
If you are able to help us, please comment below. Thank you!
