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Daniel Dunaief

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A large tree in front of Emma S. Clark Memorial Library was no match for Hurricane Isaias. Photo by Pam Botway

Politicians with long memories and short fuses demanded answers from PSEG and LIPA for the communications problems and the slow restoration of power after Tropical Storm Isaias, even as they lamented how this wasn’t supposed to happen again after the long recovery from Superstorm Sandy in 2012.

State Assemblyman Steve Englebright (D) said LIPA and PSEG were inconsiderate with their spoiled food policy. Photo by Kyle Barr

In a full-day hearing of the combined New York State Assembly and Senate, local politicians including Assemblymen Steve Englebright (D-Setauket) and Doug Smith (R-Holbrook) and Senators James Gaughran (D) and Todd Kaminsky (D-Rockville Center) questioned everyone from the chairman of the Public Service Commission, John Rhodes, to the President of PSEG Long Island, Daniel Eichhorn, and the CEO of LIPA, Thomas Falcone.

“We were told after Superstorm Sandy that things would change, but they did not,” Kaminsky said. “Why do we pay some of the highest electric and internet bills in the country when we couldn’t reach a provider, when the information we got was inaccurate? Why is it so hard to receive a reimbursement? Who is funding those reimbursements?”

Indeed, Rhodes, of the Public Service Commission, said he wanted answers from numerous utilities throughout the state and that the commission was not going to leave “any tool on the table.”

That proved small consolation for politicians and their constituents, some of whom were without power for over a week and many of whom had to throw out the entire contents of their powerless refrigerators and freezers. That is an especially problematic proposition in the aftermath of the pandemic, when budgets are tight and the recession caused by the lockdown has cut jobs in numerous industries.

Englebright questioned why PSEG is reimbursing customers for food spoilage only if their power was out for at least 72 hours. The reimbursed amount totaled $150 if the customers didn’t have receipts and could be as high as $250 if they had receipts, photographs, a canceled check or a credit card bill.

Englebright suggested the timeframe should allow for food spoiled after about 48 hours and wondered why the utilities had not settled on a longer time frame. The Setauket assemblyman wondered whether PSEG believed food “spoils more slowly on Long Island than any other place.”

Eichhorn said the 72 hour threshold defined numerous factors in a storm and “aligns with some of our processes.” The three day time frame “triggers certain things.”

Falcone added that the 72 hours defined a major storm.

“That’s not a health definition,” Englebright countered, but, rather was a “storm definition. That doesn’t necessarily reflect what somebody’s suffering from if their refrigerator is out for perhaps even half of that length of time.”

PSEG’s Eichhorn acknowledged that the company’s response to the storm was “not in line with our expectations.” He said the company is conducting its own reports to figure out what went wrong and to make changes and improvements.

“I’m not here to make excuses,” Eichhorn said. “We own the experience our customers had and we are committed to fixing it.”

Kaminsky asked whether PSEG had tested its system prior to the storm. Eichhorn responded that the company did a simulation in June and that PSEG passed that test.

That passing grade, despite the performance a few months later, will be a focus of PSEG’s own review, as well as a review conducted by LIPA.

“The most relevant stress test was the storm and [the PSEG system] was obviously inadequate,” Falcone said. The systems were “not robust enough” to allow customers to report power failures to PSEG.

On behalf of their constituents, politicians also lamented the shifting timeline for restoring power. In several cases, representatives at the virtual meeting recounted how residents spoke with people in utility trucks or representatives from PSEG who told them their power was on when their constituents were still struggling through the ongoing outage.

In an interview, Gaughran expressed his frustration with the utility arrangement on Long Island, where LIPA oversees PSEG, while the Public Service Commission has no direct authority or recourse.

“The Public Service Commission cannot fine them or sanction them,” Gaughran said. “They’re totally out of the loop.”

Sen. James Gaughran and Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory officials at an Aug. 18 press conference. He has called for additional oversight of both LIPA and PSEG Photo from Sen. Gaughran’s office

Reflecting the concerns of his fellow senators and assemblymen and assemblywomen, Gaughran wondered what the utilities would do to protect Long Islanders in the event that another storm, with potentially stronger winds and heavier rain, impacted the region.

Gaughran said he would like to ensure that PSEG and LIPA don’t tap into a storm reserve fund, which is a collection of money set aside with rate payers money.

“The language in that fund is clear: they can’t access that for any part of the cost” from mismanagement or inadequate storm response, Gaughran said. “If you have an out-of-town crew sitting at the side of the road for hours waiting for instructions … those extra costs are costs of incompetence.”

Gaughran introduced a bill that would give the Public Service Commission the authority to investigate and sanction and fine the company and force them to take corrective action.

To prevent this kind of communication failure from happening again, Eichhorn said the company was conducting reviews of its computer system, which includes its outage management system and the telephone and digital experiences.

“We have made interim changes during and since the storm,” Eichhorn said. “We are continuing to do an after-action review to identify additional short and long term changes to ensure we’re ready for the next storm.”

Falcone added that LIPA would “go back and see why the system failed. We are hiring independent people to redo the stress test.”

Assemblyman Smith asked whether PSEG knew that National Grid employees weren’t a part of the storm response crews, even though people with experience were on Long Island.

“National Grid [employees] were not used during the storm,” Eichhorn said. “That will be included in the review.”

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Owners of Huner’s Fitness Advantage in Port Jefferson said they believe they should be considered essential for the work they do helping people remain active and healthy. Photo from Huner’s Fitness Advantage website

After doing heavy lifting to ensure customer and employee safety, gyms can begin to reopen soon.

Suffolk County Executive Steve Bellone (D) announced a gradual gym reopening starting this Monday, Aug. 24. This comes after earlier this week Gov. Andrew Cuomo (D) said gyms can start to reopen once they receive guidance from local government.

Commercial gyms, such as Planet Fitness, LA Fitness, Retro Fitness and those that require a membership fee, along with indoor classes can restart next week.

Each fitness center will have to pass a county health inspection to make sure the gyms have sufficient procedures to protect staff and customers while following state guidelines established by Cuomo.

Hotel, office, higher education and residential gyms can reopen starting the following week, on Aug. 31.

On Thursday, Aug. 20, the county will host a virtual meeting with facility owners to review guidance, answer questions and provide any clarifications.

“With our infection rate holding steady at or below 1 percent and a robust testing system in place, we are confident we can reopen gyms in a way that is both safe and responsible,” Bellone said in a statement. “I want to remind our residents and gym owners that we are still in the midst of a pandemic.”

Bellone encouraged those attending gyms to wear a mask and follow all safety procedures.

Communal showers, whirlpools, saunas and steam rooms and water fountains and self-serve bars and samples must remain closed. According to the governor’s web site, individual showers and stalls can remain open as long as they are cleaned between use.

Classes are restricted to the most restrictive guidelines, which could either be six feet of distance in all directions from a participant, a limit of 33 percent capacity and no more than 50 people.

Gym owners also must provide sanitizing stations, acceptable face coverings, which exclude bandanas, buffs and gaiters and the limitation of physical contact activities including boxing and martial arts.

During each inspection, businesses will receive a gallon of NYS Clean hand sanitizer.

According to Cuomo, local health departments are required to inspect gyms prior to reopening or within two weeks of reopening, to ensure strict adherence to the state Department of Health guidance.

Indeed, the Suffolk County Department of Health Services will begin inspections on Monday, Aug. 24 for commercial and traditional gyms.

“New Yorkers must closely adhere to the guidelines and local health departments are required to strictly enforce them to help ensure gyms and fitness center reopen safely and protect the public health,” Cuomo said in a statement.

The Suffolk County Department of Economic Development and Planning will work with the Suffolk County Department of Labor, Licensing and Consumer Affairs and the Suffolk County Department of Health Services to create an online database of gyms and fitness centers within the county.

Before an inspection, gym owners will need to complete the affirmation for each location, which owners can find at the New York Forward website forward.ny.gov, that they reviewed and understood the state guidelines and will implement these protocols.

After owners attest to their safety plans, the county will schedule inspections. Suffolk will send out an email with the date and approximate time for an inspection.

Gym owners need to post a written safety plan describing the ways they are protecting employees and gym members from COVID-19.

Cuomo also requires that gyms use a MERV-13 or greater air-handling system. If the gym can’t operate at that level, the owners need to have a heating, ventilation and air conditioning professional document their inability to use such a system and adopt additional ventilation and mitigation protocols from the American Society of Heating, Refrigerating and Air-Conditioning Engineers and the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

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METRO photo
Daniel Dunaief

By Daniel Dunaief

My mother often describes family rituals in her columns, whether they are the way we play baseball, the way we argue (remember the pancakes on my then teenage brother’s cantankerous head?) or the way we celebrate victories and help each other rise off the mat after defeats.

Ever the driven optimist, my mother can turn the most lemony lemons into something much more palatable, often, as Julie Andrews did in “My Favorite Things” with a spoonful, or two, of sugar.

It would be easy this week to lament the fact that, for the first time in decades, my family can’t see my mother on her birthday because of the danger from bringing the virus to her home. We recognize that so many people are enduring so much more challenging disruptions to their routines and that we are fortunate to have each other and can share the events of the week with her
through Zoom.

So, instead of being disappointed by the distance, I will share ways in which my mother, who will celebrate this birthday with my brothers and not me, my wife and our children, has cast a long shadow, all the way to our doorstep.

Well, for starters, my children and I can be, and often are, serious when the moment demands. And yet, a part of us can’t help imagining uproariously funny images or interruptions to a somber and important speech at just the wrong moment. I’m sure part of what was so familiar about my wife’s similarly mischievous nature comes from recognizing the moment when one of us feels compelled to answer a rhetorical question or to laugh during a silence.

My mother also has a keen ear for the words people choose to use or that immortalize them, much the way my children and I do. Of the many Winston Churchill quotes, she has, on occasion, shared this one: “I like pigs. Dogs look up to us. Cats look down on us. Pigs treat us as equals.”

I suppose that one isn’t too surprising, given her appreciation for animals which likely comes from her father, who grew up lactose intolerant on a dairy farm. Hmm, maybe that’s where she gets her sense
of humor?

Moving along, my family revels in our senses. We smell something wonderful, like baking cookies or the scent of new flowers in the spring, and we take a moment to appreciate the gift of the scent and our senses, which enable us to perceive and process it.

My mother also has a spectacular appreciation for nature. A sudden dark sky isn’t cause for concern or disappointment, but is a chance to appreciate the variety of weather that makes the coldest day warmer and the warmest day cooler.

Now, given the times in which we live, I see my mother in both of our children as they handle the ever-changing rules and realities of a world that hasn’t yet conquered the virus. Our daughter could rue the inequities that are robbing her of a “normal” college education. Instead, she and her resilient friends are staying in touch, supporting each other, and looking forward, as my mother would, to the day when they can return to a campus they might have otherwise taken for granted.

As for our son, despite his dedication and passion for baseball, which is a rite of passage each spring, he kept his head up and took time to train on his own, waiting for the moment when he could return, stronger and faster, to his field of dreams.

We can’t wait to sing to you this year, mom, and to let you know that, even though we haven’t traveled to see each other, we are enjoying the echoes of your joie de vivre in the halls of our home.

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Sen. James Gaughran and Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory officials at an Aug. 18 press conference. He has called for additional oversight of both LIPA and PSEG Photo from Sen. Gaughran’s office

Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory, which is trying to unlock vulnerabilities in COVID-19 that could help in the public health battle, struggled amid the shifting time frame PSEG established to restore power after Tropical Storm Isaias Aug. 4.

A lab room at Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory. Photo from Sen. Gaughran’s office

At a press conference Tuesday morning, Aug. 18, state Sen. James Gaughran (D-Northport) spoke alongside two CSHL executives about the damage from PSEG’s changing predictions about restoring power following the storm.

PSEG “failed to provide CSHL with timely and accurate estimates on the restoration of power to CSHL facilities, placing tens of millions of dollars of active biomedical research at risk,” Steven Monez, chief facilities officer, said. “CSHL wants to help PSEG improve its communication protocols so when system failures on this magnitude occur in the future, the best information is communicated and resources are mobilized to provide temporary power to critical research operations.”

Gaughran described how damaging the loss of power, and the uncertain time frame for its restoration, was to CSHL, where several scientists have restructured their research efforts to try to help solve health problems caused by the virus.

“They are on the front lines of dealing with trying to find solutions to COVID-19,” Gaughran said in an interview. “Their research was significantly delayed because of not having the power they needed.”

The state senator contends that the “wrong information” from the New Jersey-based utility was “very costly not just to them, but to the country,” which needs scientific efforts like those undertaken at CSHL to save lives and lessen the severity of symptoms.

In a statement, PSEG said CSHL was on the critical facility list. The company’s major account consultant “escalated the job accordingly” and performed a site visit, according to PSEG. “We have agreed to hold a meeting with Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory to discuss infrastructure improvements.”

A joint New York State Senate and Assembly virtual public hearing will address the power and communication failures from Tropical Storm Isaias Thursday, Aug. 20, at 11 a.m., with oral testimony by invitation only.

Monez will provide testimony about the information PSEG shared with CSHL during the outage. PSEG will also be represented at the meeting.

Meanwhile, Gaughran plans to introduce legislation that will amend public authorities law to authorize an investigation by the New York Public Service Commission during a declared state of emergency.

“I have written legislation to try to cure this problem,” he said. Long Island Power Authority is “supposed to be the oversight agency. They seem to have failed us in making sure the emergency management communication system was working.”

The provision will provide an amendment to allow the Public Service Commission to investigate, make findings and issue penalties against LIPA and its service providers for failure to follow their emergency management plan during a persistent and widespread power outage, he said. Penalties could include denial of recovery of any part of the service restoration costs commensurate with the degree and impact of the outage.

Gaughran remains disappointed with numerous aspects of PSEG’s communication during and after the storm, from being unreachable after a power outage to providing updates that indicate homes and businesses had power when they didn’t.

Utilities should have “so much redundancy in their communication systems that they never have this many problems,” he said, adding this is “clearly an issue that has to be fixed and leadership [at LIPA and PSEG] needs to fix this.” 

The extended outage and communication problems were especially damaging to businesses that have just reopened after a prolonged shutdown triggered by the pandemic, he said.

As the hurricane season continues through the end of November, Gaughran said he “wants to make sure this doesn’t happen again. We have got to avoid this.”

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DNALC Assistant Director Amanda McBrien teaches a live session. Photo by Chun-hua Yang, DNALC

By Daniel Dunaief

Two letters defined the DNA Learning Center at Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory over the last several months: re, as in rethink, reimagine, reinvent, recreate, and redevelop. They also start the word reagent, which are chemicals involved in experiments.

The 32-year-old Learning Center, which teaches students from fifth grade through undergraduates, as well as teachers from elementary school to college faculty, shared lessons and information from a distance.

At the Learning Center, students typically benefit from equipment they may not have in their schools. That has also extended to summer camps. “Our camps are built on this experiential learning,” said Amanda McBrien, an Assistant Director at the Learning Center.

DNALC Educator Dr. Cristina Fernandez-Marco, teaches a Genome Science Virtual Class. Photo by Sue Lauter, DNALC

While that part of the teaching experience is missing, the center adapted to the remote model, shifting to a video based lessons and demonstrations. Indeed, campers this year could choose between a live-streamed and an on-demand versions.

Dave Micklos, the founder of the Learning Center, was pleased with his staff’s all-out response to the crisis.

“The volume of new videos that we posted on YouTube was more than any other science center or natural history museum that we looked up,” Micklos said. “It takes a lot of effort to post content if you’re doing it in a rigorous way.” During the first few months of the lockdown, the Learning Center was posting about three or four new videos each day, with most of them produced from staff members’ homes.

As for the camps, the Learning Center sent reagents, which are safe and easy to use, to the homes of students, who performed labs alongside instructors. In some camps, students isolated DNA from their own cells, plant or animal cells and returned the genetic samples to the lab. They can watch the processing use the DNA data for explorations of biodiversity, ancestry and detecting genetically modified organisms.

The Learning Center has been running six different labs this summer.

The virtual camps allowed the Learning Center to find a “silver lining from a bad situation” in which students couldn’t come to the site, McBrien said. The Learning Center developed hands-on programs that they sent throughout the country.

McBrien said the instructors watched each other’s live videos, often providing support and positive feedback. Some people even watched from much greater distances. “We had a few regulars who were hysterical,” McBrien said. “One guy from Germany, his name is Frank, he was in all the chats. He loved everything we did” and encouraged the teachers to add more scientific lessons for adults.

McBrien praised the team who helped “redevelop a few protocols” so high-level camps could enable students to interact with instructors from home.

A DNA Barcoding Virtual Camp featuring DNA Learning Center Educator Dr. Sharon Pepenella, with her virtual class. Over Pepenella’s shoulder is a picture of Nobel Prize winners Francis Crick and James Watson. Photo by Sue Lauter, DNALC.

Using the right camera angles and the equipment at the lab, the instructors could demonstrate techniques and explain concepts in the same way they would in a live classroom setting. To keep the interest of the campers, instructors added polls, quizzes and contests. Some classes included leader boards, in which students could see who answered the most questions correctly.

This summer, Micklos and Bruce Nash, who is an Assistant Director at the Learning Center, are running a citizen science project, in which teams from around the country are trying to identify ants genetically throughout the United States.

Using a small kit, one reagent and no additional equipment, contributing members of the public, whom the Learning Center dubs “Citizen Scientists,” are isolating DNA from about 500 of the 800 to 900 species of ants.

In one of the higher level classes called metabarcoding or environmental DNA research, teachers collected microbes in a sample swabbed from their nose, their knees, tap water, and water collected from lakes.

The Learning Center supports this effort for high school research through Barcode Long Island, which is a partnership with the Hudson River Park to study fish in the Hudson. High school interns and the public help with sampling and molecular biology.

“Much like barcoding, we aim to democratize metabarcoding,” Nash explained in an email. A metabarcoding workshop that ended recently had participants in Nigeria, Canada, Antigua and distant parts of the United States, with applicants from Asia.

After teaching college faculty on bar coding, Micklos surveyed the teachers to gauge their preference for future courses, assuming in-person meetings will be possible before too long.

When asked if they would like in-person instruction only, a hybrid model, or classes that are exclusively virtual, none of the teachers preferred to have the course exclusively in person. “People are beginning to realize it is more time efficient to do things virtually,” Micklos said.

Nash added that the preference for remote learning predated the pandemic.

Micklos appreciates the Learning Center’s educational contribution. “To pull these things off with basically people talking to each other via computer, to me, is pretty amazing,” he said.

Around four out of 10 students who enter college who have an interest in pursuing careers in science continue on their scientific path. That number, however, increases to six out of 10, when the students have a compelling lab class during their freshman year, Micklos said.

Lab efforts such as at the Learning Center may help steady those numbers, particularly during the disruption caused by the pandemic.

The longer-term goal at the Learning Center, Micklos said, is to democratize molecular biology with educational programs that can be done in the Congo, the Amazon or in other areas.

As for the fall, the leadership at the center plans to remain nimble.

The Learning Center is planning Virtual Lab field trips and will also continue to offer “Endless Summer” camp programs for kids and parents looking for science enrichment.

The Center also hopes to send instructors for in-person demonstrations at schools, where they can host small groups of student on site.

“We are supporting as many people as possible through our grant-funded programs and our (virtual) versions of camps and field trips,” Nash said. “These will be adapted to support schools and others to progressively improve them through the fall, with the hope of reaching all those we would normally reach.”

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Kahille Dorsinvil. Photo courtesy of BNL

By Daniel Dunaief

The show must go on, even in science.

After 70 years of bringing residents into their high tech facility to see some of the cutting-edge technology for themselves and to interact with the scientists from around the world who ask questions about the nature of matter, the universe, energy, weather and myriad other questions, Brookhaven National Laboratory plans to continue the tradition of Summer Sundays, albeit virtually.

Starting this Sunday, Aug. 16, with a virtual explanation video and question and answer session with several scientists, the Department of Energy laboratory will welcome those curious about their labs back, albeit virtually. The first session will begin with a video about the National Synchrotron Lightsource II, a facility that cost close to $1 billion to construct and that has numerous beamlines that enable researchers to see everything from the molecules of a battery in action to cutting edge interactions in biochemistry.

This week’s session, which will run from 3:30 to 5 p.m. will be available on BNL’s YouTube channel. Participants who would like to ask questions during the session can submit them in writing through the lab’s social media accounts or by sending an email to [email protected]. A moderator will direct questions to a panel. The other programs are on August 23rd for the Center for Functional Nanomaterials and August 30th for the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider.

“Summer Sundays are a large public event and clearly that’s not something anyone is doing right now,” said Kahille Dorsinvil, Principal Stakeholder Relations Specialist and Summer Sundays Coordinator at BNL, who has been working at BNL for 14 years. “People probably thought they’d see us in 2021, [but] we’re still doing science and we’re still trying to share what we’re doing.”

The virtual event has the advantage of allowing the lab to serve as a host for a much larger group of people, who aren’t limited by seats or by social distancing rules. “We tried to make it so there was no limit to who could watch or participate with us online,” explained Dorsinvil.

Participants will watch a short video tour and will then have an opportunity to interact with panelists. The videos will include footage shot from numerous angles.

The participants during a typical in-person Summer Sundays event range across the age spectrum, as BNL promotes the effort as a family event.

Summer Sundays appeal to residents who have already attended similar events in prior years. Indeed, when the lab asks visitors if this is their first time, about half have been to the site before. “Some are our best friends come every year,” Dorsinvil said.

Dorsinvil grew up on Long Island, visiting the lab when she was in ninth grade at Newfield High School in Selden. Through the program, and apprenticeship program, which currently exists as STEM prep for rising tenth graders, she focused on a different science topic each week, including basic chemistry and the environment.

Dorsinvil was already interested in science, but visiting BNL “made a difference in how I continued” in the field, she said.

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SBU Uses Up Half of Rainy Day Fund to Balance Budget

Stony Brook University is facing a huge financial hole in 2020. File photo from Stony Brook University

The COVID-19 crisis has exacted a heavy toll on Stony Brook University’s finances, creating a $109.6 million deficit on the academic and research side.

Maurie McInnis was named SBU’s sixth president. In a stunning letter made public on her president’s web page, she details the huge financial hole the school will have to navigate in the near future. Photo from SBU

The pandemic cost the hospital and clinic an estimated $58 million, while it also cost the academic and research campus over $74.6 million in the past financial year, which includes $35 million in refunded fees, $12 million in lost revenue from cultural programs and facilities rentals, and $8.5 million in extra expenses, including cleaning and supplies, student quarantine costs and technology costs, according to message from new Stony Brook University President Maurie McInnis published on her SBU president web page Aug. 12.

Through a number of steps, including hiring freezes, the university has attempted to offset these costs, but that won’t be enough. The school is tapping into its central reserve fund, essentially the university’s rainy day pool, reducing it by over 50% in one year. McInnis, in an open letter on her web page, said this “is completely unsustainable.”

Starting today, McInnis will hold a series of virtual campus conversations to provide more details and address questions, while she and university leaders search for long-term solutions to address a host of challenges that have presented a serious headwind to the school’s future budget.

In disclosing detailed information, McInnis wrote that she believes such disclosures will help the campus work together towards solutions.

“I believe that it is only by being open and candid and providing clear information that we can come together as a community to tackle our shared challenges,” she wrote in her letter.

In her letter to the campus, McInnis detailed specific costs, while she also outlined the steps Stony Brook has taken to offset some of these financial challenges.

For starters, she wrote that the university has been “told to expect a 20-30% cut in state funding this year, or $25 million.” The school also had its allocation for last year retroactively cut by $19 million.

“It is unclear when, if ever, our funding will return to current levels, let alone the levels of support we ideally receive as a top research institution in the region,” she wrote in her letter.

Federal government restrictions on travel and visas, along with COVID impacts, have created a 17.5 percent drop in out-of-state and international students, which not only reduces diversity but also creates a $20 million drop in revenue.

The number of campus residents will also decline by 40% for next semester, from 10,000 to 6,000, creating an estimated $38.9 million revenue loss.

The bottom line, she explained, is that the $109.6 million deficit on the academic and research side. This she predicts, could become significantly worse.

The measures the university has taken offset some of that decline, saving the school an estimated $55 million, but the measures still do not close the budget gap and are not sustainable.

A hiring freeze for new positions and for those that become open from staff and faculty attrition will save $20 million.

Student housing refinancing will save $31.1 million in fiscal year 2021.

An ongoing freeze on expenses covering costs for service contracts, supplies and equipment and travel will save about $2.3 million

A cut to the athletic budget will save $2 million.

Senior campus leadership, meanwhile, has voluntarily taken a 10% pay cut along with a permanent hold back of any 2% raise for all Management Confidential employees.

At the same time, the university faces longer-term financial challenges.

State support has declined since 2008, from $190.4 million to $147.7 million last year. That will be even lower this year. On a per-student basis, state support in 2020 was $6,995, compared with $9,570.

This year’s expected increase in tuition and the Academic Excellence fee have not been approved by the SUNY Board.

The multi-year contracts that govern faculty and staff pay have not been fully funded, McInnis wrote in her president’s message. That has created an additional cost of $10 million for the 2020 fiscal year. Over the next five years, that compounds to $54 million.

The rainy day fund is picking up $9.7 million of that scheduled contractual salary increase raise.

The Tuition Assistance Program has been set at 2010 tuition levels, which creates a $9 million financial gap in fiscal year 2020. That is expected to rise in 2021. Stony Brook also recently learned, according to McInnis’s letter, that TAP will be funded at 80 percent of what the school awards to New York State students who rely on the program to access higher education.

At the same time, the Excelsior Program, which began in the fall of 2017 and allows students from families making up to $125,000 to attend school tuition free, may not accept new students this year.

McInnis concluded with her hope that the university will come together in the same way it did during the worst of the pandemic in New York to address these financial challenges.

“I fully recognize that you are operating in one of the most difficult environments any of us has experienced,” she wrote. “And, we are going to have to bring the same level of collaboration and innovation that you brought at the height of the COVID-19 response to our systemic budget challenges.”

McInnis urged the staff to “work together, share the best ideas, challenge assumptions, and build on the excellence of Stony Brook University in order to continue to move this great institution forward.”

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A tree fell on a mail truck on Old Post Road in Setauket during Tropical Storm Isaias. Photo by John Broven

By Daniel Dunaief

Daniel Dunaief

Timing is everything. Just ask the people who bought large blocks of tickets to sporting events and then tried to resell them in the year with empty stadiums or, perhaps, PSEG last Tuesday.

The New Jersey-based utility was supposed to be the savior of Long Island power, bringing corporate muscle, know how and technology to a region that had suffered in 1985 from outages that lasted weeks from Hurricane Gloria and dislocations and gas shortages during Superstorm Sandy.

But then, Tropical Storm Isaias had other ideas. The storm came through Long Island last Tuesday and, within hours, the communications system went down at PSEG, making it difficult for residents to know whether their efforts to report outages, downed trees, and dangling power lines were effective.

The storm caused about 420,000 people to lose power. That is particularly problematic at a time when some residents are still working from home. It also disrupts the angst-ridden end-of-summer period as parents and students prepare for a school year filled with questions about an uncertain future.

Hardened by all the difficulties of an impossible year, some residents chalked it up to the mess that is 2020, hoping that the change in the calendar will allow everyone to return to a normal in which we can hug friends, shake hands, visit extended family and lean in at a crowded restaurant to hear what someone said. If the vaccine Russia rushed to the market for the virus proves effective without serious side effects, maybe that hope will become a reality.

Just before Isaias hit, however, PSEG must have frustrated the entity in control of the disruptions during this haywire year. You see, the company sent out a postcard.

Now, postcards are nice, particularly when you get one from someone vacationing in an exotic location. You might appreciate the magnificent scenery, even if the card makes you wonder why your friend didn’t take you along instead of spending 42 cents to make you jealous of her wonderful life.

But, no, this wasn’t that kind of postcard. This was the kind of message that helps build a brand, that makes you feel as if you’ve landed somewhere between the familiar rhythm of a safe Brady Bunch household and the high-tech, happy future of the Jetsons.

The card, which arrived hours before Isaias in mail trucks that would have had trouble delivering them the next day, had a picture of a man in sunglasses on a power truck, wearing a yellow hard hat with blue skies and intact branches behind him.

The message offered GOOD NEWS! Of course they used all caps and an exclamation point. Then, the card continued, UPGRADES COMPLETED! How nice and promising, right? The postcard went on to suggest, “PSEG Long Island recently finished work to ensure that you and your neighbors will continue to receive safe and reliable electric service for years to come.” The words safe, reliable and years to come were in orange, as if they were highlighting the parts you needed to read closely, emphasizing their comforting professionalism and reassuring skill set.

The last paragraph read, “After careful inspection, we replaced and upgraded equipment that strengthens the infrastructure to better withstand storms and extreme temperatures.” The highlighted words were replaced, upgraded, and strengthens the infrastructure.

The tag line, after thanking customers for their patience, was, “Just one more way PSEG Long Island is working for you.”

Hmm, now, that postcard might have slipped, unnoticed, into the trash bin. But, that’s not what happened here. The postcard and storm arrived the same day and, despite the reassurance that the company had the infrastructure to better withstand storms, it seems that the storm, and maybe 2020, had other plans.

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Debra Bowling of Pasta Pasta talks to County Executive Steve Bellone. Photo by Kyle Barr

This past weekend, President Donald Trump (R) was in Suffolk County, raising money for this reelection. During his time on Long Island, he called requests for financial aid amid the pandemic a bailout, repeating some of the language he used two years in response to Puerto Rico’s request for financial aid after Hurricane Maria.

“I couldn’t disagree with this more,” County Executive Steve Bellone (D) said today on a conference call with reporters. “We need federal disaster assistance to respond to, and recover from, COVID-19.”

Bellone said the county abided by guidelines from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and that it shut down its economy to protect the health of its population, lowering the death toll at the cost of the economy.

Approaching an argument the president has made against the reaction to the murder by police of Minneapolis resident George Floyd, Bellone suggested that the lack of financial support from the federal government would be a form of defunding the police, taking away salaries from public health workers and removing the financial support necessary for the safe return of students to in-person learning this fall.

“This should have nothing to do with politics,” he argued. “We are still in the middle of fighting a pandemic.”

The county executive urged the federal government to provide vital financial resources to fund these recovery efforts.

“When President Trump talks about federal disaster assistance as a bailout, this is flat out wrong,” Bellone said. The money he has requested, including during a recent trip to Washington, DC, he argued will pay for police officers. Bellone also pointed out that Long Island has provided ample financial resources to the federal government during more prosperous years through tax dollars.

By taking away state and local property tax deductions, the federal government has added billions to what Long Island sends to Washington as a region every year, Bellone said.

“The notion of a bailout suggests we did something wrong in Suffolk County,” the county executive continued. “The fact of the matter is, we all did our jobs here.”

Viral Numbers

Separately, Bellone said Suffolk County has managed to keep illnesses and deaths down in the public health battle against COVID-19.

In the last day, the number of people who have tested positive for the virus was 55 out of a total of 5,030 people who received a test. The rate of just over 1 percent is tracking with the positive tests for the last few weeks and is well below the 5 percent threshold schools have for reopening.

The number of residents who tested positive for the antibody to COVID-19 stands at 24,392.

Hospitalizations, meanwhile, continued to be well below the worst of the pandemic, when the health care system strained under the weight of sick residents.

The number of people hospitalized with COVID-19 stands at 33, which is an increase of 2. The number of people in the Intensive Care Unit was three.

Hospital bed occupancy stood at 72 percent overall and at 67 percent in the ICU.

The number of people who have died from complications related to the virus stands at 1,998. Four people were discharged the hospital in the last day.

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PSEG trucks remove a downed tree in Mount Sinai Aug. 7. For several days, cars had to swerve around the tree that split the intersection of North Country Road and Crystal Brook Hollow Road. Photo by Kyle Barr

PSEG Long Island plans to restore power to the remaining 400 Long Island customers by midnight who haven’t had electricity since last Tuesday, when Tropical Storm Isaias hit.

“We remain committed to getting all customers related to last Tuesday’s storm restored by midnight tonight,” PSEG President and Chief Operating Office Daniel Eichhorn said on a media call Wednesday.

PSEG has 6,500 line workers and tree trimmers who are working to restore power from a host of states and continues to accept any other workers who are available.

This morning, PSEG moved workers from New Jersey, where it is headquartered.

Eichhorn assured residents that their bills would reflect the energy they used, which means that they won’t have to pay for electricity during the time their power was out.

The total number of outages in Long Island, including those who have been without power since the storm hit, stands at 10,500, which is a number that might increase this evening amid the predicted thunderstorms. Of those who are out, approximately 7,500 have lost power related to the storm, although Eichhorn said they are unlikely to have been without power for over a week.

Amid concerns about the pace of restoring power, the number of homes and businesses who were out and a communications problem on the day of the storm that made it difficult for residents to connect with their power company, Eichhorn said PSEG plans to use this experience to improve on the company’s storm-related processes.

Once the company restores power, PSEG will do a self assessment, which will include a “deep dive” into “lessons learned,” at which point the company will make immediate and long term changes to makes sure they are ready for the next storm.

Indeed, County Executive Steve Bellone (D) joined a growing chorus of politicians who expressed their concerns about the company’s readiness for the remainder of the hurricane season, which extends through the end of November.

“As we move towards the fall, we could be struck with a much more significant storm than this tropical storm,” Bellone said on a separate media call. “If that is the case, these issues need to be fixed. They need to be resolved before then.”

Eichhorn said PSEG hasn’t given much thought at this point to making the company’s assessment about its performance during the storm public.

Meanwhile, New York State Senator James Gaughran (D-Northport) called for the resignation of Eichhorn and Long Island Power Authority President Thomas Falcone.

Asked about the call for his resignation, Eichhorn said he was “aware of that” and the response of the company to the storm will be “part of our lessons learned and review. I’m pretty proud of the restoration efforts from our team. People have worked extremely hard and are very dedicated.”

Eichhorn added that PSEG would look into the IT issues that caused the frustration from customers and would “get better” and “make sure, for the next storm” they are “fully prepared.”

Eichhorn said he recognized the frustration people have been feeling, especially during a pandemic. Amid a discussion of residents in Cold Spring Harbor who blocked in a utility crew, preventing them from leaving until they restored electricity, Eichhorn said he understood that it’s a tough time to lose power, especially when so many people are working from home.

Still, he urged residents not to limit the ability of crews to react to the order of jobs. When crews are blocked in, they might help one or two homes or families at the expense of 100 or 200, he said.

PSEG wasn’t prepared today to discuss the possibility of reimbursing families for lost food during the outages, even as several politicians, including Brookhaven Town Supervisor Ed Romaine (R) requested that the company provide $500 to each household that lost power for more than two days.

“Our plan is to really focus on making sure we get customers’ [power] back today,” Eichhorn said. “Tomorrow, we’ll start looking at those other decisions.”
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