New York State System Benefits Charge

I attended a presentation recently given by a representative from Pathstone, which is described on its website as a “not-for-profit regional community development and human service organization providing services to farmworkers, low-income families and economically depressed communities throughout New York, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Ohio, Indiana, Vermont, Virginia and Puerto Rico. PathStone has successfully operated a wide array of programs funded by federal, state, local, faith-based and private sources.”

The representative, from Pathstone’s Energy Program, gave an overview of various energy-related benefits available, including home energy assessments, assistance with applying for matching grants, and low-interest loans. It sounded great, until I asked him how they were funded, and I’m pretty sure I understood that their main funding was from something called an SBC charge added to people’s RG&G bills. He also mentioned that rental properties with fewer than 4 units can apply for assistance with grants for energy efficiency upgrades (e.g., a new water heater or insulation), and that the basis for determining grant eligibility is not based on the assets or income of the landlord, but rather the income of the tenant seeking the upgrade. This seemed like a bit of a scam to me, although I can understand that a low-income tenant can be burdened by a higher-than-necessary heating bill if a landlord is too stingy to improve the building’s energy efficiency.

Still, it prompted me to look at my RG&E bill, since the representative said the monthly SBC charge was roughly $4. Now, I know my bill is not representative of the average usage, but my last month’s SBC/RPS charge was $20.50, and last winter, well, suffice it to say it was much higher (it’s calculated at $.00726/kwh). So what is this SBC/RPS charge? The New York State Department of Service website describes the System Benefits Charge (SBC), established in 1996, as funding “public policy initiatives not expected to be adequately addressed by New York's competitive electricity markets. In 1998, the PSC specified SBC funding levels for three years and the framework for energy programs targeting efficiency measures, research and development and the low-income sector. The SBC was renewed for a five year period in 2001 with increased funding and additional focus on programs designed to achieve peak load reductions.” The SBC continues to be renewed in 5-year increments, and the current annual average budget is roughly $100 million. The most recent “extension of the SBC program provides a renewed vision of the program as a means for testing, developing and introducing new technologies, strategies and practices that build the statewide market infrastructure to reliably deliver clean energy to New Yorkers.”

I couldn’t find a reasonable explanation of the Renewable Portfolio Standard (RPS), but I did see that the SBC/RPS charge includes the Energy Efficiency Portfolio Standard, which funds rebates that encourage people to purchase and install high-efficiency energy appliances (from something as substantial as installing Energy Star certified appliances to… installing energy-efficient light bulbs. What? Yes, even with no income verification, if you follow the proper procedures, you can get 10% back, up to $300, for changing your light bulbs! All of this funded by this subtle monthly fee on your own bill!). And this is how sneaky the fee is – even though it acts and feels like a redistributive tax, it itself is taxed by New York State.

  

So if you upgrade your appliances, or furnace, or, yes, light bulbs, do not feel guilty about applying for a rebate from the New York State. Because in fact, all you’re doing is getting your own money back (and maybe a bit of mine…).

For more information on the SBC charge, visit: http://www.nyserda.ny.gov/About/System-Benefits-Charge

Time Warner Cable

So I’m thinking I need a new blog category for “rants.” Although this one at least has a somewhat satisfactory ending, which I’m sharing in case others can benefit.

With our triple-play Time Warner Cable bill approaching $200 a month, I called to see what I could do to lower the rate. The account representative wasn’t impressed with my idle threat to cancel service (at least for now, TWC cable is the only game in town – DIRECTV isn’t satisfactory, and Verizon Fios seems as mythical as unicorns). So I asked about canceling various services that appear individually on my bill, starting with something called Starz, which I had gotten for free as a promotion and which somehow started being billed at $8/month. Gone. Could I get rid of the Sports Programming surcharge of $2.75/month (which they recently started bundling with the Broadcast TV surcharge of $2.25/month)? No. Consider it like the ‘resort’ fee hotels use to keep their room rates artificially lower, or the ‘snow removal fee’ Maggie Brooks instituted to give the appearance of not increasing Monroe County taxes (wait, that’s a different rant…). OK, what about the separate charges of $1.97 and $2.97 for the program guide? Could I rent the cable box without the guide? No. So why break the price out separately? Don't go there.

What the representative did suggest was that I could purchase an Apple TV and use it to replace one of my cable boxes (we have two, and to get the HD service, you must keep at least one box). At a price of $64.99 at Best Buy ($69.99 in their stores, but they’ll match their internet sale price. Seriously?), this seemed like a no-brainer; the Apple TV would pay for itself in less than a year, and I’d have lots of additional functionality. Once installed, I was thrilled to be able to open the TWC TV app on my iPad and watch the programming on the TV through AirPlay. But when I later tried to repeat the process to show my husband, it no longer worked. The error message was cryptic: “TWC TV does not currently support HDMI video out from this device. Please disconnect HDMI to continue using TWC TV.” I called two different TWC customer service numbers, and was told that I had been misinformed by the account rep. One technical support person said a Roku would work, but not Apple TV. I called later in the week to complain about the misinformation, and to verify whether the Roku really would work (and to ask why the Apple TV seemed to work for a few random minutes). The first rep transferred me to a special technician, who said definitively that TWC doesn’t work with Apple TV, but they’re working on it. He apologized for the confusion, and said he would make sure the account people stopped misinforming customers. Then, on a lark, he suggested I try turning “mirroring” off. Tada! My TV was now displaying the channel from my iPad app. So the account representative had been right, and all of the technical people I’d spoken to were wrong. Things have gotten so complex that even the “experts” don’t always know the right answer.

We're not ready to cut the cable cord completely, even though we watch only a small fraction of the "hundreds" of channels, because many of them require an additional subscription, many others are redundant, and still others are in foreign languages. But returning one cable box feels like a huge victory in the battle against the cable monopoly. I urge any of you with more than one box to explore doing the same. It takes a little getting used to, but it's worth it for the satisfaction of giving a little less of your money to Time Warner Cable CEO Robert Marcus...

Master Class

I had another of those rare Rochester opportunities recently – to attend a vocal Master Class at the Eastman School of Music. In this case, the master was none other than the famous and popular Renée Fleming (the “people’s diva, as she was introduced by Dean Rossi), who grew up here in Rochester and studied at Eastman. I took my friend (and Concentus conductor) Gwen, and we joined a full house in Kilbourn Hall Monday afternoon. What a treat!

There were four students who came on stage one by one, and Fleming took her time with each of them, gently making corrections and suggestions, and always being extremely encouraging. This was nothing like Terence McNally’s play of the same title, in which Maria Callas treats the students as “victims.” To the contrary, Fleming did everything she could to help the students relax – shaking their shoulders, making them laugh, helping them breathe.

The first soprano, visibly nervous but with a gorgeous voice, performed a recitative and aria from Menotti’s The Old Maid and the Thief, and Fleming coached her not just vocally but gave her tips for dramatic interpretation, including how to address the inner monologue and the pauses in the music. At one point, Fleming told the student she was “so brave” and instructed her (and the audience as well) to “bend over, take a deep breath.” She explained that a master class is scary, performing and being judged, and that it’s one step away from an audition. To take a bit of “edge” out of the student’s voice, Fleming gave her a straw and had her sing through it; she told us this is how she warms up in taxis and hotels!

The second student, a baritone, sang what I thought was a rather boring Brahms song, and Fleming agreed – he was singing everything the same. She loved his “distinctive sound and vibrato,” but actually asked him to back off on the vibrato a bit. Interestingly, she also gave some interpretive instruction to the pianist, whose playing was also a bit boring.

Arielle on the right, after the class

The third student, another soprano, was my favorite, not just for her operatic name (Arielle Nachtigal), but for her vocal sound and expressiveness. Fleming also appreciated the performance as she nodded and smiled throughout, and then commented that the aria, from Le nozze di Figaro, was perfect for her. Arielle was also nervous, of course, and Fleming periodically shook her shoulders to get her to relax. She had Arielle do the plank against the wall (instead of on the floor, since she was dressed too nicely for that) to get her to expand her ribcage and maintain the fullness, and all I could think was I hope Gwen doesn’t make the Concentus singers do this to warm up!

According to Fleming, the final student, a tenor, sang every note of an Italian-language sonnet by Britten too evenly – the syllables were all correct but there were no accents. She asked him to “sing it like you like the language,” to understand where each phrase was going, and to save the biggest space for the high note in the phrase, to allow it to bloom. As she shook the student’s and pianist’s hands at the end, I could see her compliment the expressive pianist, Wei-Wei Hsu: “beautiful playing.”

Renee Fleming after the class, with Dean Jamal Rossi
and  U of R's President Seligman

Fleming was funny and down to earth, but she also took her role very seriously in giving constructive feedback to these students, all of whom dream of careers on the stage. They were a bit too nervous, or too young, to incorporate all of Fleming’s suggestions in the allotted half hour, but they all did improve their performances visibly and audibly, and all earned a gracious “much better” from Fleming. And I wouldn’t be surprised to see Ariella’s name again, in particular, sometime in the future.