Striving for victory

Daily Point

Dems out in droves on Long Island

Multiple — but very preliminary —voting tallies on Long Island indicate some early enthusiasm for Democrats.

That includes figures from Nassau County for the first three days of early voting, which included votes from about 33,000 registerd Democrats compared to just over 14,000 votes cast by registered Republicans and just under 10,000 from those with no party affiliation.

Absentee ballots returned also broke blue in Nassau: out of just under 190,000 requested, more than 90,000 were returned as of Tuesday morning. Democrats accounted for more than 50,000 of those, Republicans for more than 20,000 and for those with no party affiliation for approximately 19,000, according to Nassau Democratic elections commissioner Jim Scheuerman.

In Suffolk County, a person familiar with the pre-Election Day activity shared data with The Point broken down by towns that indicate that out of approximately 70,000 people who voted early through Monday or sent in their absentees, 15,000 of those people didn’t vote at all in New York in 2016. Those numbers, too, broke for Democrats, with the 15,000 figure including 7,668 Democrats, 4,043 unaffiliated voters, and 2,563 Republicans. Among the non-2016 voters in four East End towns — Southampton, Southold, East Hampton, and Shelter Island — Democrats accounted for about 1.5 times as many votes as unaffiliated and Republican voters combined.

The usual caveats apply here to the preliminary numbers from both counties: people registered in one party could be voting for a candidate of a different party, and that this is still a small sample size.

Something new to munch on for those who are busy crunching this week.

—Mark Chiusano @mjchiusano

Talking Point

Nice work, if you can get it

For Nassau University Medical Center Chief Legal Officer Meg Ryan, October brought a second senior title but without a raise, then, after heated debate and a week of research, a $90,000 pay bump to go with the new job, chief operating officer for the public hospital. Twelve days later, she lost the new title.

This being NUMC, though, she’ll likely keep the raise.

At NUMC’s regularly scheduled monthly meeting on Oct. 8, Chairman Bob Detor had planned a move to make then-interim chief executive Dr. Anthony Boutin’s title permanent, which went fairly smoothly. Detor told The Point Monday that Boutin has a great relationship with hospital doctors and staff that makes him instrumental in helping NUMC transition into a sustainable operation. Right now, it’s hemorrhaging so much money that its auditors have cast doubt on its ability to keep operating absent major changes.

But Detor was taken aback when holdover board members appointed by Republican Edward Mangano then pushed a sudden and surprise move to grant Ryan a second title, chief operating officer. According to Detor, that led first to an #MeToo-style argument that a woman was once again being asked to do two jobs while only being paid for one, then the approval of the new title and a $90,000 annual raise. The new salary is $450,000.

Although Detor has nothing but praise for Ryan’s work, he was not happy with how the new title was handled, telling The Point: "This hospital really needs a full-time chief operating officer now, with everything we’re trying to contend with, and a move like this needs to be properly introduced, and be on the agenda, by our bylaws and because it matters that you do these things properly and not have board factions ambushing each other."

As an example of proper governance, Detor said County Executive Laura Curran, who must sign off on Boutin’s permanent title, wouldn’t approve the move until she was sure the board agreed. Curran also wants the hospital to have a full-time chief operating officer.

But Detor also wanted to check out what comparable hospitals pay, and how they staff.

What he found looking at the public hospitals in Westchester, Erie and Stony Brook, he said, is that Ryan had actually been underpaid for her original title.

So Detor called a special meeting for Oct. 20, at which Ryan lost the chief operating officer role but kept the $90,000 raise.

Assuming the Nassau Interim Finance Authority, which put NUMC in a control period earlier this year and must approve such spending, agrees. NIFA probably will, as several members say they are fine with it if the numbers are in line with comparable positions, but there is a lot of unease at NIFA, including for chairman Adam Barsky, about how the NUMC board is operating.

"My larger concern is that members of the board, outside of Bob Detor, don’t understand the severity of the financial picture," Barsky told The Point.

Also worrisome, according to several NIFA board members, are splits between Democratic and Republican appointees in an organization that has long been a source of jobs and political support for whoever could control it. Mounted on top of that is the strong influence on board members by CSEA leaders who represent 3,200 NUMC employees and oppose a significant restructuring.

NIFA recently commissioned a report that laid out a catastrophic financial picture of NUMC, with a deficit of $112 million to $197 million expected in 2021. The budgeted daily census for 2021 of 319 patients, in a facility with 631 beds, is especially worrisome. Curran has exposure to financial liability, and some degree of control, because the county guarantees $173 million in NUMC bonds.

And Ryan’s $90,000-a-year raise, in that context, would appear to be the least of anybody’s worries.

—Lane Filler @lanefiller

Pencil Point

And justice for all?

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Final Point

King’s quest

A week before voters will choose his successor, Rep. Pete King is trying to tie up the loose ends on one more important item on his to-do list: Getting a refund of $3.3 million to the New York City Fire Department’s World Trade Center Health Program.

And it looks like that could happen within days.

The federal government withheld the funds to offset debts from another New York City agency, which owed money to the federal Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services. The Treasury Department took the funds from the FDNY health program because it shared the same taxpayer identification number with other parts of New York City government.

King and others have tried for more than a month to get the bureaucratic mess separated from the FDNY health program.

Resolving the situation took yet another federal agency — the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, which oversees the federal WTC health program and got involved to help. Officials from CMS and CDC talked Monday, and confirmed that FDNY health program would be reimbursed in full, likely later this week.

"It’s 99.9% good news," King told The Point. "Anytime you’re dealing with any bureaucracy, especially the federal bureaucracy, it can’t be 100% until the check is deposited and cleared."

"On the face of it, this is the perfect answer to a situation that never should have occurred in the first place," King added.

King told The Point he had hoped to resolve the situation before his final term in office ended.

"I feel very good about this. It wasn’t easy," King said. "I’d hate to be leaving with this still out there. It was the one piece of the puzzle that hadn’t been filled."

Now, he’s just waiting for the check to clear.

—Randi F. Marshall @RandiMarshall