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Jeff J. Pitkin Wednesday, November 20, 2013 8:00 AM Tom Congdon John B. Rhodes; Hal Brodie FW: CONFIDENTIAL Request for funded positions
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High

Tom: I received a call yesterday afternoon from George Westervelt (DOG) as a follow up to this discussion last week. I stated that I had discussed this with John and other Officers, and that John reached out to you to express some of our initial thinking on the proposal, and that I understood you were going to discuss these with Mike or George. I relayed to George that we had some initial concerns about having funded staff performing work activities unrelated to of our mission. I offered that funding our proportionate share of these activities out of our Cost Recovery Fee assessment is an option, but this would require that the staff be on payroll somewhere else.

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Jeff Pitkin I Treasurer New York State Energy Research and Development Authority 117 Columbia Circle I Albany, New York 12203-6399 P: 518.862.1090 x3223 I I C: 518.469.3437 I F: 518.862.1091 E: iip@nyserda.ny.gov W: nyserda.ny,gov Follow: Friend : Connect with NYSERDA

From: Jeff J. Pitkin Sent: Wednesday, November 13, 2013 1:35 PM To: John B. Rhodes Cc: Janet Joseph; Tom R. Barone; Hal Brodie; Tom Lynch; Peter V. Mahar; Donna J. Rabito Subject: CONFIDENTIAL Request for funded positions Importance: High
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CONFIDENTIAL I received a call from Mike Novakowski (and George Westervelt) from the Division of the Budget with a request. He explained that Larry Schwartz and the Governor want to create a special unit in the State Inspectors General Office to focus on preventing fraud, waste and abuse in state government (agencies and authorities), but they want to keep the unit positions/funding off State Budget. So they are asking various public authorities for assistance in funding certain positions for the unit on each authoritys payroll. We are being asked to support 3 positions (didnt tell me how many in total and what our share is). No information on salary level and therefore what the cost would be. They asked what the process would be and whether we see any limitations. He said Tom Congdon is aware of the request. I responded that I would discuss with you and get back to them (he said response in next couple of days would be helpful). I reminded them that we already fund 5 positions for the Governors Energy and Policy on payroll (I forgot to also add recent position for Fellow for Counsels Office). I explained that adding additional positions without funding will create fiscal challenges for us. I explained that, if we proceed, these positions would likely be funded in the same manner as other administrative support positions, with the salary and fringe benefit costs allocated across all programs (in proportion to direct program staff costs), with the bulk of the cost being allocated to the clean energy programs (EEPS, RPS, T&MD) further diluting our approved program administrative funding for these programs. I explained that these budgets are already constrained, and that we also are needing to address a number of uncertainties for resources in the context of Green Bank and EEPS restructuring and shared resource needs with DPS. I explained that unlike other authorities, we dont
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have our own independent revenue stream that we collect which could be used to fund these costs. ~ other offsetting adjustments, we would need to seek an increase in our program administration funding from our sponsors DPS/PSC and that this may be problematic. I asked if it were possible for us to receive relief from a portion of the State Cost Recovery Fee, or on the annual $913,000 payment to the General Fund under Article VII Budget language. Mike said he would pass along the request, but thought it not likely that this would be entertained since it would be in contrast to other initiatives for addressing State Budget needs.

I can run some numbers to see what impact to our EEPS/RPSIT&MD funding might be based on guesstimates of salary levels. How would you like to proceed? (Mike asked if we could get back to him with our response on whether we can accommodate the request in the next few days). Jeff

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Jeff Pitkin I Treasurer New York State Energy Research and Development Authority 117 Columbia Circle I Albany, New York 12203-6399 Pc 518.862.1090 x3223 I C: 518.469.3437 I F: 518.862.1091 I E: iip~nyserda.ny.gov I W: nyserda.ny.gov Follow : Friend : Connect with NYSERDA