LIPA trustees challenge early PSEG report on probe into aggressive collection tactics

LIPA trustees on Wednesday took aim at the early findings of PSEG's investigation into reportedly aggressive collection tactics, expressing frustration that the monthlong probe by a former prosecutor did not include a single interview with a customer.

During a sometimes-tense trustee meeting Tuesday in which LIPA separately announced that PSEG fully met just 75% of its performance metrics last year and missed two key measures of reliability, several trustees pounced on the methodology and early conclusions of the preliminary findings that PSEG delivered about the probe it began following reports in Newsday of aggressive collection practices.

Among the preliminary findings in the four-week probe: PSEG found no evidence of a “systemic culture issue affecting customer empathy in the collections organization or in shutoff or arrears practices” and no “variances” between PSEG practices and state law or LIPA’s rules.

Trustees quickly took issue with the number of people interviewed in the probe (45) and the early jump to conclusions.

“Why would anyone come up with conclusions if you’re in a preliminary stage of something?” said trustee Anthony La Pinta, calling the report “entirely self-serving.” He added, “To me there’s a lot more work to be done here …”

Trustee Vanessa Baird-Streeter noted that the weeks of investigation didn’t involve interviews with even one of the utility’s 1.2 million customers, focusing instead on back-office call-center and collections staff, supervisors and other PSEG employees.

“Is there any intention of reaching out to the customer?” she said.

“That’s an interesting point,” allowed Dan Shapiro, deputy general counsel at PSEG who led the probe. He noted the group did review customer complaints and conducted a ride-along with a field collector to “better understand the real-world customer context.”

Trustee Mili Makhijani took issue with an action-item already put in place as a result of the probe: a new policy for any individual who seeks to speak at a conference to “make sure” that person’s manager is involved, the materials are “reviewed and there is discussion about the right way to represent the company and to speak about our customers. A former PSEG supervisor quoted in Newsday's story had spoken at a Florida conference about its collections practices, telling attendees that customers in arrears "think better in the dark."

Makhijani said such an action-item is “probably not something we’d want to see front and center because that just gags folks. It just prevents potentially negative [information] about what’s really going on from coming out … We don’t want to cover it up, we want to get to the root of the problem.”

LIPA chairwoman Tracey Edwards, who pressed PSEG on how deeply its workforce had been interviewed, in the end put a stop to Shapiro’s presentation before he got to recommendations and “ongoing cooperation” portions.

“I want to know more about how people are rewarded there, how are people disciplined,” she said. “Because if you’re creating the wrong behaviors and if you’re rewarding the wrong behaviors, reviewing these process documents is not going to get us here,” she said, later adding, “Don’t conclude because we’re not going to let you.”

Scott Jennings, president and chief operating officer of PSEG’s Long Island division, indicated that the company had launched the internal probe quickly to address LIPA’s concerns and bring it to the board. Any positive findings, he said, do not "mean the book is closed on this by any means.”

“I do want to show that we weren’t going to let this fester and not give an update in June,” he said of the board report. “This is obviously an important thing, so we wanted to do that, and this is what we’ve gotten to in the last three or four weeks.”

Also during the meeting, LIPA reported that PSEG fully met 75% of its performance targets for 2025, forfeiting $5.14 million of a total potential $23.89 million package. The results were an improvement from the past two years, but PSEG again missed important targets for outage duration and frequency, residential customer satisfaction and worker safety.

As a result, LIPA said PSEG would be eligible for $18.65 million in bonus compensation for meeting three-quarters of the targets, partially achieving four and missing eight. PSEG operates the electric system for grid owner LIPA under a $493 million contract that expires in 2030.

Among PSEG’s “challenges” during the year, according to Carolyn Scibelli, senior manager performance measurements at LIPA, was a missed target for customer satisfaction. PSEG ranked 11th of 18 large eastern utilities in JD Powers’ residential customer satisfaction survey. PSEG’s performance on the JD Power metric has improved thus far this year, to seventh place as of the second quarter.

PSEG missed two important measures of system reliability, involving the amount of time customers were collectively left in the dark and the frequency of those outages. PSEG reported 15 storm events in 2025 were among factors that impacted the numbers, though the company has missed the metrics in prior years, Newsday has reported.

LIPA trustee David Manning raised questions about PSEG’s missing the JD Power residential metric (the company topped the list of JD Power business customer service results).

“We’re actually making progress,” said Louis Debrino, vice president of customer operations for PSEG. “We’re making positive progress” with new programs that will help. “We expect to continue to see growth going forward.”

Nick Forst, newly named director of the Department of Public Service’s Long Island office, the chief outside watchdog of LIPA and PSEG, said of the metrics during the meeting: “I think this year’s performance was very clear from the results.”

By Mark Harrington

mark.harrington@newsday.comMHarringtonNews

Mark Harrington, a Newsday reporter since 1999, covers energy, wineries, Indian affairs and fisheries.