Futures of NUMC, AirTrain, more

Daily Point

NUMC chair keeps the ball rolling

For several years before Nassau University Medical Center board chairman Edward Farbenblum took the helm in June, two camps dominated the conversation. One side said the hospital, with more than 500 beds and 3,000 CSEA employees but too few patients, bad ratings, inefficient operations and a poor reputation, must either be massively shrunk or go belly up.

The Nassau Interim Finance Authority, overseeing county and hospital finances and fearful of the $188 million in NUMC bonds guaranteed by the county, has generally been in this camp.

The other side said the public-mission hospital should survive mostly as it is, and framed attempts to massively shrink it as being driven by politics and the power of other area health care systems.

That’s the CSEA’s take.

Farbenblum has a different idea: Fix the finances as much as possible via the low-hanging fruit of management improvements, use that progress to get more support, including potentially from the state, and then get great doctors, earn patient trust and turn the place around.

Now the first step is underway.

One of Farbenblum’s earliest moves was to put out a request for proposals to start sketching out ideas. Several years ago, a consulting firm had done an analysis for NUMC of potential changes to its finances, and came up with as much as $50 million a year in financial improvements. Nothing ever came of it.

The RFP garnered 10 proposals and NUMC is negotiating a deal with Freed Maxick, a consultant which has worked with the Erie County Medical Center, a gold-standard public-mission hospital, for 15 years. NUMC expects to spend around $50,000 on a preliminary plan and upward of $500,000 on a more detailed restructuring blueprint.

Farbenblum says the "low-hanging fruit" includes changes in poor billing, coding and reimbursement practices costing NUMC as much as $10 million a year. It also includes billing the federal 340-B program that pays drug costs for financially challenged hospitals. When NUMC billed 340-B in July, it was the first time the hospital had ever sought money from that program.

And he says Freed Maxick and the other top consultants submitting proposals have access to data sets that can show him where NUMC is and is not performing properly.

NIFA chair Adam Barsky, while still fearing that NUMC’s long-term future will demand a huge restructuring, says Farbenblum’s aggressive attempts at improvement and embrace of the suggestions in the mothballed report are a real positive.

County officials are also increasingly (but cautiously) optimistic about NUMC’s path.

And Farbenblum has found staffing help to go with the outside consultants. Karen Blount, a longtime hospital executive and consultant with years of experience working with the Erie County Medical Center, has been hired by NUMC for special projects, like saving the institution.

At a hospital whose liabilities are nearing $1 billion, and which lost $102 million last year, she’ll have plenty to do.

— Lane Filler @lanefiller

Talking Point

Next Stop: LaGuardia Airport

Shortly after Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo announced his plans to resign, those who oppose the LaGuardia AirTrain — one of the projects he long supported — began to speculate that perhaps the AirTrain could be stopped in its tracks.

Reports even began to circulate that Port Authority employees had sent an open letter to the Port leadership, asking for a halt to the project. A source, however, has told The Point that the letter was signed by a single employee.

And less than a week before Cuomo’s departure, the Port made it clear that the LaGuardia AirTrain is moving forward, announcing a "short list" of four development teams that now will compete for the final bid on the project. The Point has learned that Port Authority executive director Rick Cotton and Lt. Gov. Kathy Hochul, who will become governor on Tuesday, are expected to meet in the near future.

Among the four finalist teams is a group called LGA AirTrain Partners, which is led by Skanska USA, which also is a member of the team working on the airport itself. Among its competitors are groups that include Dragados USA, which has done work on high speed rail and built bridges and highways internationally; Yonkers Contracting Company, which has worked with the Port Authority before but also has had problems with its work, including at the Hudson Yards subway station; and Tutor Perini, which is doing work at Newark Airport.

Now the four teams must submit bids by April 2022. The Port will make a selection during the summer of 2022.

Meanwhile, some of the needed construction will get underway far sooner, as there’s work to do to prepare for the AirTrain at the airport itself.

Even as plans continue on the LaGuardia AirTrain, which will take passengers to the airport from the subway and Long Island Rail Road stop at Willets Point, the effort to replace the Newark AirTrain is also moving forward, with federal environmental approvals coming last week.

— Randi F. Marshall @RandiMarshall

Pencil Point

Incognito

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Final Point

Legislating Cuomo

It can sometimes feel like there’s a bill for everything in Albany, and naturally that’s been the case when it comes to fallout from the report on sexual harassment by Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo.

Some recently proposed legislation would address particular allegations in the AG-commissioned report: Brooklyn State Sen. Andrew Gounardes has a bill addressing the release of personnel files with the intent to disparage a victim of workplace discrimination, similar to the position state staffer Lindsey Boylan found herself in after going public with allegations of sexual harassment.

The bill, which passed the Senate in June, provides additional recourse to victims of this kind of retaliation.

Other bills would address more of the Cuomo aftermath. One from Bronx/Westchester State Sen. Alessandra Biaggi that has passed the Senate would prohibit the use of campaign funds to pay settlement fees, fines or penalties for sexual harassment. Her colleague James Skoufis has a proposal to revoke the pension of a public officer convicted of impeachment, and Elijah Reichlin-Melnick has another that would deny campaign account access to those who’ve been impeached.

Both bills from those north-of-NYC Democrats are merely pending in Albany, the status that lots of legislative ideas retain and retain and retain.

But there’s plenty of Cuomo-related aftermath that legislators can pursue even long after he’s gone — like a separate legislative attempt to change the name of the Gov. Mario M. Cuomo Bridge back to the Tappan Zee.

— Mark Chiusano @mjchiusano

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