Massena Electric Department

Page 1 Approved by the MEUB 8/21/2024 MASSENA ELECTRIC UTILITY BOARD MINUTES of Thursday, July 18, 2024 Town of Massena Electric Department – 71 East Hatfield Street Present: James Shaw Andrew McMahon, Superintendent Richard Maginn Jeffrey Dobbins, Treasurer John Bogosian Matt Gray, Deputy Superintendent-excused Charles Raiti Margo Rochefort, Deputy Treasurer Rene Hart Patrick Facteau, Town Liaison Eric Gustafson, Attorney Raymond Lancto, Town Liaison Chairman Shaw opened the meeting at 1:04 pm 1) APPROVAL OF MINUTES: RESOLUTION: The Massena Electric Utility Board hereby approves the minutes of the regular meeting of June 20, 2024 as presented. Moved by Rene Hart- Seconded by Richard Maginn - All in Favor 2) OPERATIONS UPDATE: Mr. McMahon gave the operations report on behalf of Mr. Gray and discussed the following topics. 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 753 days. MED experienced a reportable injury on June 20th when an Employee cut their forearm while stripping wire. The Employee received basic first aid on site, administered by his co-workers, and then was brought to the Emergency Room. He received five stitches and then returned to work with no limitations. This incident occurred on Maple Street while the Employee was preparing to install a streetlight. This ends the existing reportable injury record at 1106 days. As of June 30th, 2024, MED has been 10 days without a reportable injury. B. Customer Impact Chart: MED Customers experienced 6,705 Customer Impact Minutes throughout the month of June, Given the continued low monthly CIM, our 12-month average has increased slightly and is now at 13,152. C. Reliability: MED Crews responded to twelve calls in the month of June, two of which contributed to our monthly CIM total. Of the twelve calls received, three calls affected no Customers, six calls affected only one Customer and three calls affected more than one Customer. The largest customer impact was due to a blown fuse on South Raquette Rd. Responding Crews patrolled the area and found no immediate cause. However, there was a strong thunderstorm in the area at the time. This call affected one hundred five Customers for one-hour and two minutes. The other CIM contributor was due to a tree contact on Gladding Rd that caused a thirty-nine-minute outage for five Customers. The remainder of the calls received in June were the result of strong thunderstorms or Customer equipment issues and involved minimal impact.  Page 2 Approved by the MEUB 8/21/2024 D. Work Schedule: Crews have completed the State Highway 420 and Hatfield intersection project. Crews have completed the pole relocation and anchor removal project on Center St in support of the Center Street Culvert replacement project. This is a reimbursable project through a state grant that the Village received. MED staff are working with representatives from Air Products to install temporary feed to the site to support construction activities. This project will entail the installation of a three-phase primary line extension and primary metering arrangement. MED staff are working with landowners adjacent to the Fregoe Road line relocation project. This project is in phase two and will involve the relocation of the MED facilities to the Langtry property. Actual construction of the new line segment is expected in the near future at the request of NYPA. 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 $9,155.02 as audited by Mr. Rene Hart. Moved by Rene Hart - Seconded by John Bogosian - All in Favor B. Power Comparison Graph: Power Costs were $498,000 for the month, higher than normal. Supplemental Power costs were $115,000 for June. 3,360 MWh of incremental energy purchased. Zone D Average Energy rate was $31.44/MWh, higher than the rate from June 2023 and previous months. Prices exceeded $90/MWh during peak hours during hot weather week of 6/16-6/22. Transmission related expenditures totaled over $181,700. UCAP (Unforced Capacity) was $40,455. Other Transmission charges were lower compared to May and totaled $141,245. Impact to Customers PPAC of 1.3¢/ kWh in July. C. Cash Flow: The Operating Fund decreased by $11,300. The Operating Fund at month end was $7.9 MM. June receipts were $893,350, $104,750 less than budgeted. Sales during May and June were less than budgeted. Interest revenue remained higher than budgeted. June expenditures totaled over $904,666, $224,600 less than budgeted. RESOLUTION: The Massena Electric Utility Board hereby approves the bills as audited by Mr. Rene Hart totaling $1,033,039.34 Moved by Rene Hart – Seconded by John Bogosian - All in Favor 4) COMMITTEE REPORTS: by Andrew McMahon, Superintendent A. Personnel 1. Staff Update: Mr. McMahon noted that one of our front office staff who was planning to retire in December was encouraged by her doctor to retire sooner. We do not plan on replacing the position immediately.  Page 3 Approved by the MEUB 8/21/2024 B. Finance & Economic Development 1. Energy Efficiency Programs: Treasurer Dobbins reported that there were no new credit requests or audits performed. He then noted that he would be reaching out to Energy Answers in the coming weeks to discuss the insulation program previously approved by the board. Locations have been identified that would qualify for this program and the next step will be out reach. 2. S&S software upgrade (Cloud servicing etc.): The software upgrade is moving forward as scheduled according to Treasurer Dobbins. He also indicated that S&S was on site for discovery. During this session they reviewed new features of the software and the Department’s operations. Some of the new features will be helpful to the Department. The review of operations did not identify any areas that will require significant changes to how staff presently operates. 3. KeyBank Credit Card Change: The application has been signed and filed. Treasurer Dobbins noted that application was now with Key Bank underwriters and a response was expected in the next few weeks. 4. Financial Statements: Draft financial statements were distributed prior to the meeting. Treasurer Dobbins asked if there were any questions from the board on the statements. He indicated that nothing had changed since the exit review by BST in March. There were no questions. Treasurer Dobbins indicated he would have BST finalize the statements and send copies for him to distribute. C. Engineering & Energy 1. Cybersecurity: The Department continues to work with Dragos for monitoring system traffic. No suspicious traffic has been identified to date. Treasurer Dobbins did note that Adirondack Techs participated in the meetings with AMI vendors. The transition to AMI will result in additional communication between devices and our network, so making sure these communications are secure is important. 2. EAB extra work: Mr. McMahon explained that while Putney Tree Service did not put a bill in for work this past month they did in fact continue to do work on the EAB issue. There are multiple trees in the western part of the service territory that will need to be addressed in the very near future. 3. NYSERDA projects: Mr. McMahon reviewed the status of these projects and noted that it appears the primary project studying the impacts of decarbonization on the system has been abandoned by NYSERDA. Mr. McMahon and Professor Newtown from SUNY Canton are working to complete the water heater study. 4. Grant funding CAC/IIJA/IRA: Mr. McMahon pointed out that Massena has been invited to bid on the PACES grant. The two projects that we were invited to submit a more detailed proposal on are for battery storage and AMI. This does not commit MED to either of these projects, but does allow us to submit a proposal. Also, with the assistance of Beneficial Electric League (BEL), we submitted two research project requests to NYS. The first is the implementation of AMI. The second is to put a new 23 KV circuit out on the western portion of our service territory. This circuit would run out from Grasse river substation through the Homecroft neighborhood and out Maple Street. The goal of the project would be to relieve some load on circuits 61, which feeds Homecroft, circuit 2301 which feeds Louisville and circuit 2303 which feeds south on 420.  Page 4 Approved by the MEUB 8/21/2024 Mr. McMahon also pointed out that while we have yet to receive an answer on our urban community forest grant to remove ash trees, we did receive a request from DEC to propose additional areas to remove ash Trees. 5. QEI SCADA software upgrade: McMahon gave the board an update on the SCADA QEI Project previously approved by the board. He noted that a progress payment has been made. 6. Trailer purchase: Also, the board approved the purchase of a trailer that is specially designed to facilitate the safe, pulling of large spans of wire. This trailer is expected to arrive in early August. The vendor will be on site to train our staff on how to use it safely and most effectively. 7. AMI procurement schedule: Mr. McMahon reported that staff met with the engineering committee to discuss this project in detail. The high-level overview is that there were eight bids received. Staff, with the assistance of PSE, reduced the process to four proposals for further consideration. Each of the four vendors had products that were intriguing. They each made half- day proposals to staff and to our consultants to elaborate on their offerings. We will have additional follow up Zoom meetings with three of those vendors to ask more questions and to identify a successful proposal. We expect to make a recommendation at the August or September board meeting. This will keep us on schedule for initial deployment next spring. 5) LEGAL ISSUES: by Eric Gustafson, Attorney: Mr. Gustafson had no remarks for open session. 6) UNFINISHED BUSINESS: Mr. McMahon also noted that staff had updated the engineering committee on the delivery of a digger truck for the line crew. Operations staff will need to finalize the specifications for the digger. The cost of the digger has gone up significantly since we last ordered diggers between 2009 and 2012. However, the cost estimate has come down since we got indicative pricing in 2021 when supply chains were especially strained post covid. While both digger trucks are due for replacement, the first digger that can be replaced is the newer and smaller of the two vehicles diggers. However, the other digger will likely be able to be delivered in early 2026. This is not an ideal situation as we normally like to stagger the purchase of large vehicles like this. But similar to our replacement of passenger vehicles, we have to adapt to recent supply chain issues. Mr. McMahon will begin work with Elijah Winfrey on the history of MED video later this month. Mr. McMahon has been doing outreach with some of the likely interviewees for this project. 7) NEW BUSINESS 8) ARTICLES OF INTEREST: Mr. McMahon then concluded by discussing the four brief articles that were in the board packet. Mr. Gustafson elaborated on the Chevron doctrine article and its potential impacts to MED. 9) SCHEDULE OF EVENTS: Next regular meeting scheduled August 15, 2024 10) PUBLIC COMMENT:  Page 5 Approved by the MEUB 8/21/2024 11) EXECUTIVE SESSION: Motion to move into executive session at 1:50 pm. Moved by Rene Hart – Seconded by Richard Maginn - All in Favor Motion to move out of executive session at 2:49 pm. Moved by John Bogosian – Seconded by Charles Raiti -All in Favor Motion to adjourn at 2:50 pm Moved by Rene Hart – Seconded by Richard Maginn - All in Favor