Feud could cost LI millions in energy rebates

The North Shore-Long Island Jewish Health System could lose several million dollars a year because feuding state officials allowed two programs that reduce the electric bills of large employers to expire.

At Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory, officials said they would have to divert money from research into cancer, autism and other medical conditions to pay higher energy costs.

The local institutions are among the 440 businesses, hospitals and nonprofit groups statewide that until last month received low-cost electricity or rebates on utility bills through the Power for Jobs program from the New York Power Authority. A companion initiative, Energy Cost Savings Benefit, aided 80 employers.

Both programs, considered valuable economic development tools, lapsed June 2 because of a disagreement over whether 2.5 million residents and farms upstate should continue receiving a large allotment of cheap hydropower. Rival plans have passed the State Senate and Assembly, and Gov. David A. Paterson is siding with the Senate.

For North Shore-LIJ, the loss of $2 million in electricity rebates coincides with $17 million less in state aid and $6.6 million more in taxes to support the Long Island Rail Road and other mass transit.

"The energy rebates help offset some of these recent actions," said Terry Lynam, a public relations vice president at Great Neck-based North Shore-LIJ. The demise of Power for Jobs "concerns us because the rebate represents an enormously important contribution to the health system's bottom line."

Cold Spring Harbor's Dagnia Zeidlickis added, "We want to spend our money on doing research, not operating costs."

In an open letter Friday, Paterson asked residents to demand the Assembly reconvene to take up the Energize New York bill endorsed by him and the Senate. He blasted the Assembly for not introducing the bill.

The governor also said the Assembly's opposition to giving businesses the cheap hydropower now reserved for upstate homeowners, reducing their bills by $2 to $4 per month, is foolhardy. "What those same customers would be giving up in lost jobs and lost opportunities for job creation within their communities - opportunities to keep local graduates in the state - is much greater," he said.

The programs had preserved more than 320,000 jobs statewide, including 34,650 at 57 Long Island employers. Paterson claims the bill he supports would cover an extra 170,000 jobs.

Assemb. Kevin Cahill (D-Kingston), head of the Energy Committee, shot back by repeating his call for a public meeting where lawmakers and Paterson could hash out their differences. It is unfair to ask hard-pressed homeowners and farms upstate to transfer to businesses the hydropower they've had for more than 50 years, Cahill said.

He and others have urged the Paterson administration to accept a one-year extension of the two power programs, the sixth in as many years. They also want the Power Authority to continue paying rebates and supply low-cost electricity minus the legal authority to do so.

"The legislature needs to come back and work on this. . . . It sends a terrible message to businesses," said authority chief executive Richard Kessel, former head of the Long Island Power Authority.

Kessel said he has already heard from employers who are mulling job cuts or leaving New York altogether. Over the next few weeks, he said, the impact of the programs' expiration will be felt as June's electric bills arrive without rebates. He predicted even higher costs in July because of the recent heat wave.

Kessel said, "The timing of the loss of these programs couldn't be worse."

POWER OUTAGE
 

Programs that reduce the electricity bills of employers in return for them promising to maintain or create jobs have expired because state leaders are divided over proposed changes. Top area employers in the programs are:
 

Power For Jobs
(low-cost electricity or rebates on utility bills)
North Shore Health System/Manhasset/2,600/6,537
Long Island Jewish Medical Center/Manhasset/2,000/6,415
Good Samaritan Hospital/West Islip/800/3,071
John T. Mather Memorial Hospital/Port Jefferson/400/1,550
Broadridge Financial Solutions-ADP/ Edgewood/1,000/1,546
 
Energy Cost Savings Benefit Program**
(discounts on electric bills)

*CA Inc./Islandia/12,000/1,807
Hazeltine Corp./Greenlawn/2,900/902
Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory/Cold Spring Harbor/2,200/864
Adecco Inc./Melville/1,500/595
NBTY Inc.,/Bohemia/600/421
 
NOTES:
*CA, under an agreement, will not lose its benefits until 2017 even though the programs have expired. **Newsday is a beneficiary of this program.

In some cases, job figures only reflect the number of positions tied to the program, not total workforce.

SOURCE: NYS Governor’s Office