ALBANY COUNTY — As schools are on the brink of reopening, educational leaders across New York this week responded to the state’s budget office informing districts it was temporarily withholding 20 percent of the state’s payments.

Congress had left for vacation without negotiating a fifth federal stimulus package to deal with the economic crisis caused by the coronavirus pandemic.

The HEROES (Health and Economic Recovery Omnibus Emergency Solutions) Act passed by the Democratic House of Representatives in May included trillions of dollars for state and local governments while the HEALS (Health, Economic Assistance, Liability protection and Schools) Act put forth by the Republican Senate did not.

Circumventing the legislative process, President Donald Trump had issued executive orders — which Governor Andrew Cuomo and others have questioned the legality of — that did not address funding to states or counties.

Cuomo has said for months that New York State needs $30 billion over two years to cover its operating deficit while simultaneously promoting public health and safety.

In July, Cuomo released a letter he had sent to Senators Chuck Schumer and Kirsten Gillibrand and the state’s congressional delegation, writing, “New York State has a $14 billion revenue shortfall in the current fiscal year and $16 billion in 2022 as a direct result of the pandemic and without additional federal aid we will need to reduce funding for hospitals, schools and local governments by 20 percent.”

Albany County Executive Daniel McCoy has repeatedly said over the last two months that the deficit will play out locally.

 “If the state of New York doesn’t get bailed out, the governor is going to have to make tough decisions and it’s going to be a ripple effect,” said McCoy on July 28. “It’s going to come down to counties. Counties have to make tough decisions and it’s going to affect the way we do business for towns, cities, and villages … We’ll all be crying, I don’t want to say ‘bankruptcy,’ but close to it.”

“States and local governments are in desperate need of federal support, without which schools in New York could face a 20-percent cut in state aid,” said Betty Rosa in a statement released Wednesday. Rosa recently left her post as Regents chancellor to become the state’s interim education commissioner.

She issued the statement with Chancellor T. Andrew Brown and the Board of Regents, which govern education in New York State. “We cannot avoid devastating cuts to our schools and the disastrous impact these cuts would have on our children without a second phase of federal funding immediately,” the statement went on.

The Alliance for Quality Education cited the Rochester City School District cutting $128 million from its budget, as the alliance’s executive director, Jasmine Gripper, said, “Rochester is only the first district to announce the consequences of New York State withholding aid; districts across the state are facing the same impossible calculations right now. Districts were already struggling to find the resources to meet students’ needs through a combination of remote, in-person and blended learning.”

Andy Pallotta, president of New York State United Teachers, which has over 600,000 members, also issued a statement on Wednesday. “While Congress is on vacation, communities and families across the country are waiting for them to do their jobs and provide the funding we need to pay for all these school reopening plans and keep students and educators safe,” said Pallotta.

He went on, “Reopening schools safely costs more money, not less. New York school districts have been banking on an infusion of federal aid to help them safely reopen their buildings in the fall, but we don’t know when or if those resources will come …

“If the federal government fails to provide those resources, New York lawmakers need to take action by taxing the ultrawealthy and using rainy day funds and borrowing authorities to provide our schools the resources they need to reopen safely.”

The New York State School Boards Association released a poll at the end of July showing 71 percent of board members felt their district either could not safely open schools in accordance with state guidelines in the absence of additional state or federal funding (44 percent) or were unsure if they could do so (27 percent).

The Guilderland School Board, at its August meeting, voted unanimously to put roughly $1.2 million into reserves after the district’s assistant superintendent for business told the board, if he “knew this was a one-year blip,” he might recommend using the funds for a tax break but not with a possible 20-percent take-back of state aid looming as well as the possibility of a protracted economic downturn.

Twindemic

On Wednesday, Cuomo stressed that the typical fall flu season will have added problems this year.

“The virus hasn’t mutated but we do have in effect a second wave, which is the flu season is starting,” Cuomo said in a conference call with the press on Wednesday. “You put the flu season on top of COVID — this is a very difficult situation to deal with … The CDC says we’re going to have a terrible fall,” Cuomo said of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

He noted that, with schools opening, even if children are checked for fevers, they can be asymptomatic and still spread COVID-19. Plus, flu symptoms can be similar to COVID-19 symptoms.

Also, Cuomo asked, “How do you do the flu tests and the COVID tests at the same time? Meaning, we have deployed almost all our lab capacity to do COVID tests.”

The state’s health department sent letters out on Wednesday to county health departments across New York, Cuomo said, to find out their plans to perform flu tests and tests for COVID-19 simultaneously this fall.

The letter, signed by the state’s health commissioner, Howard Zucker, requires a response by Aug. 26.

“I am requesting detail about what plans for this fall your LHD [local health department] has developed to provide residents of your county with sufficient availability of, access to, and information about both flu and COVID-19 tests …,” the letter says. “If there are any issues or barriers your LHD can foresee that will make it more difficult to maintain sufficient testing capacity within your county, please note them specifically, and my team will work with yours to get them resolved.

“Finally, in addition to adequate testing capacity, developing and implementing a robust influenza vaccination plan will help ensure we can continue to respond efficiently to the ongoing challenges of this pandemic, so please also provide information on specific steps your LHD is taking to increase vaccination rates in your communities.”

“This is going to be difficult and challenging,” said Cuomo on Wednesday. “It will require a reduction in the number of COVID tests or in the turnaround time on COVID tests, and we already had issues on the turnaround time on COVID tests.”

He also said he wanted schools that are reopening to “take into consideration” what happened at Notre Dame University and the University of North Carolina — the campuses had opened for in-person learning but then shut down because of outbreaks of COVID-19.

Special enrollment

Cuomo announced on Tuesday that the safety net for uninsured New Yorkers will be extended in the midst of the ongoing public-health crisis. The special enrollment period is extended for another 30 days, through Sept. 15. New Yorkers can apply for coverage through NY State of Health, the state’s health insurance marketplace, or directly through insurers.

New York saw the sixth highest increase in uninsured rates in the nation during the months of the pandemic, according to a LendingTree survey; as of May, New York saw a 100-percent increase in uninsured rates compared to pre-pandemic levels. The state also saw an unemployment rate of 15.7 percent, which is a leading driver of the uninsured rate.

“While we’ve crushed the curve of the virus, we are still in challenging times for hard-working families throughout the state who need access to quality, affordable health care,” Cuomo said in making the announcement.

“The state has maintained low infection rates and is moving in the right direction, but we know we’re not out of the woods yet,” he said. “By offering this special enrollment period, we’re making sure New Yorkers who need affordable and at times live-saving health care coverage can get it.”

Stopping the spread

On Wednesday, for the 12th straight day, New York State had a positivity rate below 1 percent, Cuomo announced. To keep the infection rate low, Cuomo this week continued to update the travel-advisory list and continued to push enforcement of Coronavirus-prevention requirements, particularly at bars and restaurants.

On Tuesday, Cuomo said that two more states — Alaska and Delaware — meet the metrics to qualify for the travel advisory requiring people traveling from the listed states, all of which have significant community spread, to quarantine for 14 days upon arrival in New York.

These are now the listed states and territories: Alaska, Alabama, Arkansas, Arizona, California, Delaware, Florida, Georgia, Hawaii, Iowa, Idaho, Illinois, Indiana, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maryland, Minnesota, Missouri, Mississippi, Montana, North Carolina, North Dakota, Nebraska, Nevada, Oklahoma, Puerto Rico, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, Virginia, Virgin Islands, and Wisconsin.

Throughout the week, Cuomo reported on investigations by the State Liquor Authority and Police and the State Police Task Force, almost entirely downstate.

On Wednesday, he said, “Local governments have to do their job. The SLA and the State Police cannot substitute for local police departments ... There's something like 150 sheriffs. There are 30,000 NYPD. This is law enforcement ….So, complacency is the issue because we are very much in the midst of it.”

Human trafficking

In the midst of the pandemic, human trafficking is on the rise in New York State. This week, a social media campaign was launched to raise awareness of human trafficking and help dispel common misconceptions about the crime and its victims. Starting this month, the Interagency Task Force on Human Trafficking will begin sharing a series of graphics aimed at correcting these misconceptions along with information about how to report trafficking cases.

“There is a deeply troubling and prevailing misconception that human trafficking only happens in the shadows and in faraway nations, when in reality it's a heinous crime that often happens in plain sight and in our own communities,” Cuomo said in announcing the campaign.

The state Office of Temporary and Disability Assistance and the Division of Criminal Justice Services — the two agencies that oversee the New York State Trafficking Victim Referral Process — received 177 referrals between January and June, a 70-percent increase over the same period in 2019. These agencies received more referrals during March and June of 2020 than during the same four-month period in any previous year.

New initiatives

On Friday, Cuomo announced several new initiatives to help the state detect COVID-19 and control its spread.

One of the new initiatives is a pilot program — including Albany — to detect the presence of COVID-19 in wastewater, which is designed to set up an early indicator system to forecast the virus spread in communities.

“Believe it or not, you can find the presence of COVID-19 in wastewater,” Cuomo said during a conference call with the press.

Early in the pandemic, scientific studies showed that the genetic material of the virus causing the disease could be detected in the feces of up to 40 percent of people who were infected. Although wastewater is not believed to be a source of transmitting COVID-19, the thought is that it can be traced through wastewater just as poliovirus was decades ago.

A half-million dollars will expand the initial wastewater sampling in Onondaga County. In addition to Albany, water in Newburgh and Buffalo will also be sampled. These communities have features that will allow for specific monitoring of smaller geographic areas such as residential, industrial, commercial, or resort areas.

Up to 12 locations, or sewersheds, will be identified within each community and sampled three times per week over a four-week period. The relationship between wastewater virus data and COVID-19 cases within the corresponding area will be analyzed.

In a second initiative, mobile testing teams from the state’s departments of health and of agriculture are being sent to farms in rural counties across New York. This initiative was spurred by several new clusters at farms linked to seasonal workers who recently traveled to New York, Cuomo said.

The program will also help with finding housing for farm workers who test positive for the disease so that they may be isolated. Congregate housing facilities that some farms provide for workers pose a higher risk for virus transmission.

The third new initiative is pooled surveillance testing, developed by the State University of New York Upstate Medical laboratory, which will use saliva samples, pooled in batches ranging from 10 to 25 samples. People being tested take the samples themselves.

Their samples are combined into one, which is tested for coronavirus. A negative test means all 10 to 25 people in the pool are thought to be free of the virus. A positive test for the pool means every individual would then have to be tested separately.

Police reform

Cuomo spoke at Monday’s press briefing of millions of protesters taking to the streets in the midst of the pandemic, spurred on by George Floyd’s death.

“You want to talk about civil rights? You want to talk about social equity? How do you explain that?” asked Cuomo of increased violence. “It’s not just New York City; it’s all across the nation. It’s also upstate New York. Upstate cities: Shooting injuries up 70 percent year-to-date; Albany shootings up 240; Buffalo 66 percent; Rochester 54 percent; Syracuse 130 percent.”

Cuomo called his June 12 executive order — the New York State Police Reform and Reinvention Collaborative — ambitious.

“What it said is, we have an issue and we have to address the issue. Very little has been done. Today I’m sending a letter to 500 jurisdictions in New York State that have a police department and the letter is explaining that it is imperative that we address this urgent crisis,” said Cuomo.

He went on, “I understand it’s complicated. I understand it’s difficult. I also understand people are dying, right? It’s like the COVID crisis. ‘Oh this is complicated, this is hard.’ Yeah, I know. It’s also a matter of life and death and so is this situation. Denial is not a successful life strategy — not in government, not in your personal life ….

Acknowledge the tensions — they are real … Form a collaborative, put people at the table — we understand the issues, we understand the tensions, we understand the differences of opinion.

“Let’s design a public safety function, a police department, where the police say they can operate with these policies and the community says their reforms that they require necessary for social justice. That’s the only way out of this. There is no other option. Denial doesn’t work.”

Cuomo set an April deadline on which state funding depends. “I’m saying in the letter today, if you don’t have a plan that is a reimagined police department by next April, there will be no state funding for that jurisdiction,” he said.

National spotlight

At Monday’s press briefing, Cuomo previewed the speech he gave that night, at the opening of the Democratic convention, featuring New Yorkers as a model of working together to stem the spread of the coronavirus.

“The COVID virus showed us how weak we were and how unprepared we were and how divided we were. I say in the speech, it takes a strong body to resist the virus because it really is a great metaphor, right?” Cuomo said. “When does the virus wreak havoc? When the body is weak. And America’s body politic is weak. We’re divided. Our government was not ready to respond so I speak about that. 

He also said, “Ask yourself when was the last time government was as essential as it is today? When? When did government matter the way it matters to you today to everybody today ….

 “Government is making life-and-death decisions …. Government matters today. Democratic, Republican, upstate, downstate. Government matters. Leadership matters. Leadership matters. Performance matters. Strip away all the rhetoric: Did you get the job done or not? Performance matters. It was the great crystallizer of truth and fact — what we've been going through. Social unity matters.”

Cuomo has a book coming out in October, “American Crisis: Leadership Lessons from the COVID-19 Pandemic.”

He said Wednesday on his conference call, “No, my book is not about the history of COVID because it’s not over. It is what we have learned, what we should learn, what we must do, how we handle this and what we need to do in the second half of the game. We are still in the midst of it, my friends.”

County numbers

On Sunday night, a man in his eighties, who had lived in a private nursing home, died of COVID-19, bringing Albany County’s death toll from the disease to 130.

As of Wednesday morning, the county has 2,436 confirmed cases of the coronavirus disease 2019, an increase of nine since Tuesday. Two of the new cases are of healthcare workers or residents of private congregate settings, two have had close contact to people infected with COVID-19, and four do not have a clear source of transmission at this time.

Additionally, 611 county residents are under quarantine, up from 564 on Tuesday. The five-day average for new daily positives has dropped to 6 from 6.2 Tuesday.

Currently, Albany County has 28 active cases, down from 35. So far, 8,715 county residents have completed quarantine. Of those who completed quarantine, 2,408 had tested positive and recovered, an increase of 16.

Seven Albany County residents are hospitalized due to the virus, with one in an intensive-care unit. The hospitalization rate remains at 0.28 percent.