LIPA delays briefing on aggressive debt collection practices by PSEG LI

Three months after criticizing PSEG’s internal investigation of the utility’s aggressive debt collection practices and demanding a deeper probe, LIPA’s trustees at a board meeting Wednesday barely mentioned the contentious matter, focusing attention instead on the utility’s strong performance during the recent nor’easter.

LIPA had originally scheduled a detailed briefing on findings from months of investigation of PSEG Long Island’s collection practices following revelations of a former employee’s comments at an industry conference earlier this year. But hours before the Wednesday meeting, LIPA canceled the presentation, saying that “taking some additional time would be beneficial” before bringing the matter to a board vote.

Trustees in June took aim at PSEG and its officials for the preliminary probe it conducted because the energy company did not interview a single customer, among other things. LIPA chairwoman Tracey Edwards at the meeting abruptly stopped a PSEG investigator midpresentation, demanding more information. “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 at the time.

Asked to discuss any new findings from the company’s internal probe after Wednesday's meeting, PSEG spokesperson Katy Tatzel said company president Scott Jennings was not available for an interview and asked for questions in writing.

LIPA officials also would not discuss the probe, said spokesperson Michelle Livingston.

Neither would say whether the decision to delay the matter was LIPA’s or PSEG’s, which last year won a five-year, $493 million contract extension after approval by the LIPA board.

As Newsday first reported in May, a now-former PSEG manager had detailed how the company turned to more aggressive tactics, including the repeated threat of shut-offs, to force customers more than 60 days in arrears to pay up. “People think much better in the dark,” the manager told the crowd of the company’s efforts to get people behind on their bills to pay up.

After reporting by Newsday and The New York Times, the state Public Service Commission launched a statewide probe of utility collection practices that is ongoing, and PSEG’s Jennings publicly apologized during a board meeting.

LIPA, in an email after the board meeting, emphasized that residential service shut-offs for nonpayment will remain suspended pending the conclusion of the investigation. Shut-offs won't resume until LIPA is "satisfied that the necessary customer protections, procedures, training, and oversight are in place," the utility said.

LIPA chief Carrie Meek Gallagher is scheduled to present results from the review at the November board meeting, the utility said. LIPA said it is also "evaluating additional customer-service and customer-protection measures for potential inclusion in PSEG's 2027 Performance Metrics package."

Also on Wednesday, Jennings presented performance statistics from the weekend storm, including from a slide presentation labeled “Operational Excellence.”

“We were prepared for this storm,” Jennings said, noting that more than 99.5% of the more than 124,000 customers impacted had service restored within 48 hours. The storm was the second largest since PSEG took over management of the grid in 2014, he noted, and required the efforts of about 1,350 workers, nearly all of them members of the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers Local 1049. High sustained winds took down more than 1,000 trees, requiring PSEG crews to address about 1,500 full-tree jobs and 700 large tree limbs, Jennings said.

The company also received 40,000 customer calls that were answered in an average of 17 seconds, he said.

But during a public comment section of the board meeting, former LIPA trustee Drew Biondo told trustees that an outside contractor for the utility responded to a call about a downed tree leaning on wires beside his house. While removing it and other trees, Biondo said, the contractor also “destroyed the side of my home, ripped the meter off my house, destroyed a fence and, most egregious, left the live connection from my house to the pole across my property and across the street,” Biondo said. Worse, he said, “they notified no one, they just left.”

Biondo praised LIPA and PSEG reps who responded in the aftermath of the tree removal, but he added the event was “not only dangerous, it was reckless.” He called on LIPA to conduct an investigation.

By Mark Harrington

mark.harrington@newsday.comMHarringtonNews

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