Massena Electric Department

Approved by the MEUB 3/21/2024 Page |1 MASSENA ELECTRIC UTILITY BOARD MINUTES of WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 21, 2024 Town of Massena Electric Department – 71 East Hatfield Street Present: James Shaw Andrew McMahon, Superintendent Richard Maginn Jeffrey Dobbins, Treasurer John Bogosian – via Zoom Matt Gray, Deputy Superintendent Rene Hart Patrick Facteau, Town Liaison Charles Raiti Public, David Grant-via Zoom Eric Gustafson, Attorney Chairman Shaw opened the meeting at 1:05 p.m. 1) APPROVAL OF MINUTES: RESOLUTION: The Massena Electric Utility Board hereby approves the minutes of the regular meeting of January 22, 2024 as presented. Moved by Charles Raiti - Seconded by Rene Hart - All in Favor 2) OPERATIONS UPDATE: by Matt Gray, Deputy Superintendent A. Safety: MED has not had a lost time injury since June 8th, 2022. The number of consecutive days without a lost time accident now stands at 602 days. There were no reportable injuries in January. This brings the number of days without a reportable injury to 965 days. B. Customer Impact Chart: MED Customers continue to experience very low Customer impacts with only 2,801 minutes recorded. With this continued decrease in monthly CIMs the 12-month average has decreased to 21,189. C. Reliability: MED Crews addressed ten calls throughout the month of January, with one call affecting no Customers, six calls affecting one Customer and three calls affecting more than one Customer. The largest Customer impact was due to a squirrel contact at a transformer bank that serves an apartment complex. This outage affected sixty-six Customers for thirty-six minutes. The remainder of the calls in January were minimal in impact and quickly corrected. D. Work Schedule: Crews have completed the follow-up of issues found during our annual Infra-red scanning. This year 26 primary hotspots were found and repaired along with 56 secondary hotspots. When the temperature allows, Crews have been installing cutouts on transformers in the Village in order to minimize outage size going forward. Crews are continuing with private area light conversions to LED with a focus on areas outside the Village. Given the mild weather that we’ve been experiencing, MED Crews have continued to replace poles around the district. Typically, maintenance pole replacements would be deferred during the winter months as site access becomes an issue due to snowbanks and lack of road shoulders.  Approved by the MEUB 3/21/2024 Page |2 3) FINANCIAL REPORTS: by Jeff Dobbins, Treasurer A. Write-Offs: RESOLUTION: The Massena Electric Utility Board hereby authorizes the write-off of bad debt totaling $3,791.18 as audited by Mr. Rene Hart. Moved by Rene Hart - Seconded by Charles Raiti - All in Favor B. Power Comparison Graph: Power Costs over $1 MM for the month. Power costs have been over $1 MM during previous years. 5-year max was from 2022 and totaled over $1.9 MM. Supplemental Power costs were over $590,000 for January. 11,560 MWh of incremental energy purchased. Zone D Average Energy rate was over $51/MWh. Transmission related expenditures totaled $225,000, up from Dec. and compared to Jan. 2023. Impact to Customers - Base PPAC for Feb. of 1.5¢/ kWh, Supplemental PPAC of 4.5¢/ kWh. Both are higher than Feb. 2023 (supplemental lower compared to Jan 2023 when this was 5.8¢/ kWh). MWh purchased, over 26,142, lower than expected for January. 5-year min and max were from 2023 and 2022. Peak Demand was 42,270, typically over 40,000 kW in January. 5-year max was 49,330 from 2022 and min on graph was from last year 37,890. C. Cash Flow: The Operating Fund decreased by $344,875, decrease was less than projected. The Operating Fund at month end was $7.4 MM. January receipts were over $1.33 MM. Mild month of December contributed to lower sales in January. Reimbursed work and interest revenue were both higher than budgeted for the month. January expenditures totaled over $1.675 MM, this is $430,500 less than budgeted. RESOLUTION: The Massena Electric Utility Board hereby approves the bills as audited by Mr. Rene Hart totaling $1,659,747.76. Moved by Rene Hart – Seconded by Richard Maginn - All in Favor 4) COMMITTEE REPORTS: by Andrew McMahon, Superintendent A. Personnel 1. Staff Update: Mr. McMahon explained that management is moving ahead with training opportunities as they present themselves. He also noted that he would advertising for summer help in the coming weeks. If anyone knows of qualified candidates, please advise Mr. McMahon. B. Finance & Economic Development 1. Energy Efficiency Programs: Treasurer Dobbins reported that a couple of residential customers had requested that audits be performed. Reports from these audits are expected in the next week. He then discussed a commercial credit request. The customer had an audit of its facilities at the end of last year. The audit identified various improvements, including replacing an older motor. The customer replaced the motor identified in the audit and is now requesting a credit of $3,084.15, the estimated 5-year electrical savings. Approved by the MEUB 3/21/2024 Page |3 RESOLUTION: The Massena Electric Utility Board hereby approves a commercial energy efficiency credit of $3,084.15. Moved by Rene Hart – Seconded by Charles Raiti – All in Favor 2. Building damage (insurance): Deputy Superintendent Gray updated the board on the repairs to the cold storage building. The materials needed to repair the front of the building were in transit and should be delivered in the next couple of days. Once received the contractor will send a crew out to make the repairs and completion of the work is expected to occur before the next scheduled meeting. He also reported that the Black & McDonald tested the equipment impacted by the accident and that there was no damage found to this equipment. Now the testing is completed, the adjuster has been provided with all the appropriate quotes and reports. Treasurer Dobbins indicated that some payments have already been received from our insurance carrier and once the work is completed we expect to receive a full recovery of costs incurred to repair the building and text the equipment, minus the $1,500 deductible our policy carries. C. Engineering & Energy 1. Cybersecurity: Treasurer Dobbins indicated there was Cybersecurity Training being offered by PURMA, the risk management association the Department is a member of, in March. He plans to attend this along with other staff members. He also noted that Adirondack Tech continues to monitor the Departments IT system. 2. EAB: Putney Tree Service continues to make progress on the most dangerous trees. 3. NYSERDA projects: Mr. McMahon relayed that the SUNY Canton students are making progress on the water heater project that they are working on. Unfortunately, the system study that we were apparently successful in receiving a grant for has yet to be awarded. 4. Grant funding CAC/IIJA/IRA: NYAPP did have a meeting with NYSERDA. It appears that some federal IIJA resiliency money is going to be set aside specifically for municipal and coops. NYSERDA recognizes that they are already well behind on this project and want to move forward quickly in identifying resiliency projects. Mr. McMahon noted some of the projects that staff is working on would improve MED’S resiliency and position us for a more electrified economy. As we try to decarbonize, and Electric usage grows, the circuits which are already stressed, will need solutions to allow for this growth. Mr. Shaw noted that while there are opportunities that seem to be presenting themselves, there are also programs which may add administrative burden to the organization. He discussed a state initiative that would limit electric bill to 6% percent of the customers total income. Programs like these seem like a good idea to elected officials. How they will get implemented and administered, who will bear that burden is not simple and will come at a cost. Regarding the paces grant, we had initially been given guidance that if we had not heard in 60 days the answer was no. As it turns out, while we haven't heard since late September when we submitted our proposal, we are told that there is still hope that we may be selected. Mr. McMahon advised the board that the energy efficient transformer incentives that was thought to be an opportunity does not look as promising on further investigation. 5. Transformer purchase update: Mr. McMahon reported that as with many purchases the delivery continues to slip.  Approved by the MEUB 3/21/2024 Page |4 6. Vehicle purchase update: Similar to the transformer purchase noted previously the delivery date is continuing to slip. 7. Conferral process: Mr. McMahon told the board that NYPA is continuing to move forward on their conferral process. They have not advised the municipals if we will be required to be a participant in this process. 8. Direct transfer trip relaying: Mr. McMahon informed the board that the DTT Project is on hold presently awaiting further guidance from our consultant and NYPA. 9. Trailer purchase: Mr. McMahon informed the board that the trailer solicitation was complete. The price was more than what was initially budgeted, but not significantly more given volatile pricing that has been found in other parts of the material market. Mr. McMahon had not spoken with the engineering committee as the bids were just received the day before the board meeting. Mr. Shaw and Mr. Maginn discussed briefly and recommended that we accept the proposal for the trailer. RESOLUTION: The Massena Electric Utility Board hereby approves the purchase of a wire pulling trailer included in the 2024 capital budget at a price not to exceed $103,000. Moved by Richard Maginn – Seconded by Charles Raiti – All in Favor 10. AMI Project: Mr. McMahon and Mr. Gray discussed the AMI project. They noted that we have sent our proposal out to bid. If the timing goes extremely well, we will have a pilot project in the field by August. If there are any supply issues or other challenges we may recommend delaying the project until next spring. 5) LEGAL ISSUES: by Eric Gustafson, Attorney: Mr. Gustafson had no remarks for open session. 6) UNFINISHED BUSINESS: McMahon discussed some of the NYAPP Albany meeting highlights from his written summary. 7) NEW BUSINESS: Mr. McMahon noted that he and Mr. Dobbins and Mr. Gray had attended a meeting of the Massena landlord association. We had wanted to focus on energy efficiency. It became evident that the landlords wanted to focus more on the eviction process. Overall, the meeting went well, and we will work with this group more Mutual needs. Mr. McMahon and Mr. Shaw attended professional engineering training online this month. Mr. Shaw noted that in addition to interesting technical topics, he found how investor owned utilities look at projects in a different light from a municipal. Mr. McMahon highlighted for the board, the number of upcoming training sessions that were focused on federal funding opportunities. He pointed out that this is a uniquely high number of sessions, and may indicate that the funding is finally going to start coming out.  Approved by the MEUB 3/21/2024 Page |5 Mr. McMahon also discussed the upcoming APPA legislative rally in Washington that he was attending. He discussed some of the resolutions that would be reviewed and the talking points with which he would be focusing on with our legislators. 8) ARTICLES OF INTEREST: 9) SCHEDULE OF EVENTS: Next regular meeting scheduled March 21, 2024 at 1:00 pm 10) PUBLIC COMMENT: 11) EXECUTIVE SESSION: Motion to move into executive session at 2:10 p.m. Moved by Rene Hart – Seconded by Charles Raiti- All in Favor Motion to move out of executive session at 2:45 p.m. Moved by Charles Raiti – Seconded by Rene Hart -All in Favor Motion to adjourn at 2:45 p.m. Moved by Rene Hart – Seconded by Charles Raiti - All in Favor