Stay up-to-date on the companies, people and issues that impact businesses in Syracuse, Central New York and beyond.
U.S. Green Building Council head to attend Hotel Skyler LEED ceremony
SYRACUSE — The head of the U.S. Green Building Council will be on hand in mid-February to help recognize Hotel Skyler for its green design and construction. S. Richard Fedrizzi, the founding chair of the Washington, D.C.–based Green Building Council and the organization’s president and CEO, will help honor Hotel Skyler for receiving the council’s […]
Become a Central New York Business Journal subscriber and get immediate access to all of our subscriber-only content and much more.
Click here to purchase a paywall bypass link for this article.
SYRACUSE — The head of the U.S. Green Building Council will be on hand in mid-February to help recognize Hotel Skyler for its green design and construction.
S. Richard Fedrizzi, the founding chair of the Washington, D.C.–based Green Building Council and the organization’s president and CEO, will help honor Hotel Skyler for receiving the council’s Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) platinum certification.
Fedrizzi, a Camillus native, will attend a plaque presentation ceremony on the morning of Feb. 14, according to Thomas Fernandez, director of business development for the Woodbine Group of Syracuse, the company that owns and developed Hotel Skyler. The hotel received LEED platinum certification Nov. 17, 2011, after first registering with the Green Building Council in March 2009.
The Hotel Skyler building previously housed Temple Adath Yeshurun and the Salt City Theatre Group. It stands at 601 S. Crouse Ave., near Syracuse University’s campus.
The Woodbine Group acquired the building in 2006 and began renovations in 2010, according to Fernandez. Construction wrapped up in early 2011, and the hotel opened shortly after it hosted guest tours during the week of April 18, 2011.
Renovations cost about $6.5 million, 25 percent of which the Woodbine Group funded with its own equity. It used loans from the Albany–based credit union SEFCU and Oswego–based Pathfinder Bank for the rest of the financing.
The project’s architect was Edwin Harrington Architects, PC of Syracuse. Its interior was designed by Charity Swanson Buchika, principal of Elan Interiors of Syracuse. She is also the daughter of the Woodbine Group owner and president Norman Swanson.
Hotel Skyler now contains three floors and 58 rooms. It is 36,000 square feet.
“We’re third in the country, 10th in the world to be an LEED platinum hotel,” Fernandez says. “We’re the only one in the United States that is repurposing an existing structure.”
The Woodbine Group used 95 percent of the building’s existing shell, including window cuts and door cuts, according to Fernandez. An elevator bay is the only exterior addition the group made, he says.
The hotel includes numerous design elements aimed at LEED certification. It uses a 16-well geothermal heating and cooling system with wells that descend 499 feet underground to regulate room temperatures.
It is also surrounded outside by pervious pavers, which are permeable to water, according to Lynee Sauer, business manager at the Woodbine Group.
“In our region, we get a lot of rain, we get a lot of snowfall,” Sauer says. “When those things occur, the storm drains can be compromised. With the pervious pavers, the storm water actually percolates back into the soil.”
More than 20 percent of material costs during renovations went toward recycled materials, Sauer says. And the hotel’s interior incorporates stained-glass windows from a church in Oswego and wainscoting that was salvaged from the Lincoln Supply Warehouse in Syracuse, she adds. Wainscoting is wooden paneling lining an interior wall.
Plus, the hotel’s rooms have a keycard energy-management system. That system switches off most of a room’s electrical outlets until a guest inserts a keycard in a slot near the door.
“It turns on the HVAC, it activates the television and so forth so that the room is essentially powered up,” Sauer says. “So it gives the guests the ability to take a firsthand role in energy management. When they leave the room they pull that card, and the room actually de-energizes after 60 seconds.”
The hotel’s energy savings are “significant,” according to Sauer, who did not provide specific energy-cost savings estimates because the hotel is in the early stages of tracking.
Hotel Skyler’s LEED platinum certification is the highest of four levels established by the U.S. Green Building Council. The hotel earned 53 points under the LEED for New Construction Rating System version 2.2 — the version of the LEED rating system for which it qualified, according to Fernandez.
Under that scale, a building can earn up to 69 points. LEED platinum certification goes to buildings earning 52 to 69 points. Buildings earn points in six categories including sustainable sites, water efficiency, and indoor environmental quality.
The Woodbine Group anticipates Hotel Skyler revenue to total more than $2 million in 2012. The company did not provide a revenue total for 2011. The hotel’s room rates currently range from $107.10 to $359, according to its website.
The group also owns two other hotels near the Syracuse University campus: the Genesee Grande Hotel at 1060 E. Genesee St. and the Parkview Hotel at 713 E. Genesee St.
The Woodbine Group employs more than 200 people, according to Fernandez. Hotel employees rotate between the three hotels, but Hotel Skyler typically has six to seven staff members on the property at a time, he says.
Upstate consumer confidence continues to climb in January
Consumers in upstate New York became more willing to spend for the third straight month in January, expressing higher current confidence despite unchanged hopes for the future. The overall consumer-confidence index in upstate New York rose 3.1 points in January to 69.5, according to a monthly survey from the Siena (College) Research Institute (SRI). Current
Become a Central New York Business Journal subscriber and get immediate access to all of our subscriber-only content and much more.
Click here to purchase a paywall bypass link for this article.
Consumers in upstate New York became more willing to spend for the third straight month in January, expressing higher current confidence despite unchanged hopes for the future.
The overall consumer-confidence index in upstate New York rose 3.1 points in January to 69.5, according to a monthly survey from the Siena (College) Research Institute (SRI). Current confidence spiked 7.9 points to 73.9, although future confidence remained unchanged at 66.7.
Confidence bounded upward at a faster rate in New York state as a whole, where overall confidence swelled 7.5 points to 74.8. That nearly reached the survey’s break-even point of 75 — the point at which consumers report equal amounts optimism and pessimism.
Results below 75 indicate more consumers responded to the survey with negative answers than positive ones. Any results over 75 indicate more consumers gave positive answers.
Current consumer confidence throughout New York State jumped 6 points to 72. The future-confidence index for the state added 8.5 points to 76.6.
The statewide results are the highest in SRI’s monthly survey since January 2011. Overall consumer confidence registered 76.5 at that time.
“I think there is an optimistic bump in January,” says Douglas Lonnstrom, professor of statistics and finance at Siena College and SRI founding director. “It is a new year. People start the year with some hope.”
This January also seemed to have less gloomy news than previous months, according to Lonnstrom. Talk of double-dip recessions faded, and New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo continued to demonstrate a strong presence, he says.
“There was a [consumer confidence] bump last January, and there is some of that here,” he says. “Cuomo had a good year. He’s looking good in the polls.”
Much of New York State’s rise in confidence levels comes from the metropolitan New York City area. New York City’s overall confidence leaped 10.4 points to 78.2. Its current confidence moved up 5.3 points to 71.3, and its future confidence surged 13.6 points to 82.7.
Consumer-confidence gains in New York state in January echoed increases in the nation as a whole. National overall consumer confidence rose by 5.1 points to 75 in January, as measured by the University of Michigan’s Consumer Sentiment Index.
National current confidence rose 4.6 points to 84.2. U.S. future confidence gained 5.5 points to 69.1.
New York buying plans
The January spike in consumer confidence was reflected in New York state consumers’ buying plans. Buying plans increased in each of the five categories that SRI measures.
The portion of consumers indicating they plan to buy a car or truck rose 5.2 points to 13.3 percent, and the share indicating they plan to purchase computers increased 0.6 points to 16.3 percent. The portion of consumers expecting to buy furniture increased 4.1 points to 21.6 percent.
And the number of consumers who anticipated buying homes edged up 1 percentage point to 4 percent. The portion planning to purchase major home improvements climbed 4.1 points to 17.3 percent.
Home buying and overall consumer spending remain major problems, along with the slow job market, Lonnstrom says. Consumer confidence is unlikely to soar until consumers increase spending plans, buy more homes, and experience an improving job market, he says.
“We might see some modest growth, but we’re not going to see boom times until we solve those issues,” he says. “And they feed off of each other.”
Gas and food prices
A majority of upstate New Yorkers remain concerned about gasoline and food prices, the SRI survey found.
In January, the portion of upstate residents who said gasoline prices pose a financial problem held steady at 69 percent. The number who indicated food prices were a problem inched up 2 percentage points to 75 percent. And 60 percent of residents said both gas and food were a problem — the same as in December.
Statewide, 59 percent of residents named gasolinae prices as a problem and 71 percent said food prices were a problem — both of which were unchanged since December. The share of residents who said both gas and food prices were a problem was 51 percent, also unchanged since December.
“There’s a lot of talk about gas prices climbing back up to that $4 per gallon range,” Lonnstrom says. “And if it hits that, it’s going to hurt consumer confidence.”
SRI conducted the survey by making random telephone calls to 804 New York state residents over the age of 18 in January.
Margin of error does not apply to the consumer-confidence index results, because they are derived from statistical calculations, but buying plans have a margin of error of plus or minus 3.5 points, according to SRI.
Anaren cuts jobs as profit, sales decline
DeWITT — Declining sales and profit forced job cuts at DeWitt–based Anaren, Inc. (NASDAQ: ANEN) in recent months. The company has reduced its workforce of 1,000 employees by 15 percent since July, saving about $5 million on salaries and benefits. Anaren, which has locations in the Syracuse area, New Hampshire, Colorado, and China, did not
Become a Central New York Business Journal subscriber and get immediate access to all of our subscriber-only content and much more.
Click here to purchase a paywall bypass link for this article.
DeWITT — Declining sales and profit forced job cuts at DeWitt–based Anaren, Inc. (NASDAQ: ANEN) in recent months.
The company has reduced its workforce of 1,000 employees by 15 percent since July, saving about $5 million on salaries and benefits. Anaren, which has locations in the Syracuse area, New Hampshire, Colorado, and China, did not provide further details on the job cuts.
Net income at the company fell nearly 75 percent in its fiscal second quarter, which ended Dec. 31, to $1.2 million, or 8 cents a share. Net sales for the period fell 17.7 percent from the same period last year to $35.7 million. Sales and profit also tumbled during the firm’s fiscal first quarter.
Anaren develops and manufactures components and subsystems for applications in sectors including satellite communications, defense, and wireless communications.
The company’s business suffered as demand for its products in the wireless infrastructure space sagged, Chairman, President, and CEO Lawrence Sala said during a Jan. 26 conference call on the firm’s latest results. The end of Anaren’s work on a subsystem for a product developed by Cicero–based SRC, Inc. that disables improvised explosive devices (IED) also contributed to the declines.
Sales for Anaren’s wireless group totaled $10.8 million for the fiscal second quarter, down more than 30 percent from the same period a year earlier. Anaren’s wireless customers are forecasting strong demand for the full year in 2012, Sala said.
He expects the company’s wireless business to show signs of improvement in the fiscal fourth quarter. At the very least, customers will need to replace parts as they use up their current inventory, he added.
The company plans to continue monitoring conditions in its wireless market and adjust accordingly.
Sala said Anaren is now selling a package that allows customers to quickly evaluate its latest wireless product line, Anaren Integrated Radio (AIR) modules. The modules can add wireless capabilities to electronic devices.
The evaluation package is sold and promoted through Texas Instruments. About 1,000 have been sold to date, Sala said. The company has been optimistic about AIR’s prospects and Sala said the line’s potential remains solid.
Space and defense sales totaled $24.9 million for the second quarter, down more than 10 percent from a year earlier.
Work in that area of the business has shifted from high-volume production jobs like the counter-IED project to development work and startup activities, Sala said. Profitability in the group should improve as the year rolls on, he said.
Anaren’s defense business has been benefitting from an increase in global demand for ballistic missile defense radar and satellite-based work, Sala added.
The cost-cutting moves Anaren undertook helped drop expenses for the quarter to about $9.9 million from about $10.8 million a year earlier.
Anaren’s share price rose 4.8 percent in January. The Russell 2000 index, of which it is a member, increased 7 percent in the same period.
Tompkins Financial makes push into SE Pennsylvania market
ITHACA — Tompkins Financial Corp. (NYSE Amex: TMP) has some specific qualities it looks for in acquisitions, President and CEO Stephen Romaine says. “Things that are five or 10 years, short-lived, or things that are white hot,” Romaine explains. “Those are things that are not really on our radar screen.” Instead, the Ithaca–based banking company
Become a Central New York Business Journal subscriber and get immediate access to all of our subscriber-only content and much more.
Click here to purchase a paywall bypass link for this article.
ITHACA — Tompkins Financial Corp. (NYSE Amex: TMP) has some specific qualities it looks for in acquisitions, President and CEO Stephen Romaine says.
“Things that are five or 10 years, short-lived, or things that are white hot,” Romaine explains. “Those are things that are not really on our radar screen.”
Instead, the Ithaca–based banking company looks for institutions that will provide generations’ worth of business and markets with long-term growth potential. Tompkins Financial’s latest acquisition fits that bill on both fronts, Romaine says.
The company announced plans Jan. 26 to acquire VIST Financial Corp. (NASDAQ: VIST) of Wyomissing, Pa. in an all-stock deal worth about $86 million. Shareholders must still approve the acquisition, which is expected to close in the third quarter.
VIST Financial has $1.4 billion in total assets, $1.2 billion in deposits, and $960 million in loans. It is parent of VIST Bank, VIST Insurance, and VIST Capital Management.
VIST Bank operates as a community bank with 21 branch offices in southeastern Pennsylvania, serving Berks, Montgomery, Philadelphia, Chester, Delaware, and Schuylkill counties.
Tompkins Financial operates 46 offices in the Central, Western, and Hudson Valley regions of New York through three subsidiary banks: Tompkins Trust Co., The Bank of Castile, and Mahopac National Bank. The company also owns insurance and wealth-management subsidiaries and has total assets of more than $3.4 billion.
When the acquisition of VIST Financial is complete, Tompkins Financial will have $4.8 billion in assets, $3.8 billion in deposits,
$2.9 billion in loans, and 67 branches.
Southeast Pennsylvania has been on Tompkins’ radar screen for several years, Romaine says.
“We’ve been educating ourselves on the opportunities that exist down there,” he says. “[VIST is] focused on long-term results.”
VIST has about 300 employees. The “vast majority” will be retained and added to Tompkins Financial’s 750 employees, Romaine says. The entire VIST management team will remain on board and Tompkins is not planning any branch closures in Pennsylvania.
VIST has about $25 million in outstanding Series A preferred stock and related warrants held by the U.S. Treasury under the TARP Capital Purchase Program. The debt will all be retired prior to closing, Romaine says.
Tompkins Financial won’t have to raise capital to retire the TARP debt, he adds.
The distance from Tompkins Financial’s headquarters in Ithaca to Pennsylvania shouldn’t be an issue either, Romaine says. It’s about as far to Mahopac National Bank’s market area in the Hudson Valley.
The acquisition will speed up growth at VIST, President and CEO Robert Davis says. The company had been planning a $30 million stock offering last summer with an eye toward expansion, but capital markets remain challenging, Davis notes.
Paralysis in the nation’s capital, the European debt crisis, and the continued economic slump also prompted VIST to start looking at potential acquirers, Davis says. Tompkins was at the top of list.
The companies first came together in 2010 during an earlier round of capital-raising for VIST. Davis says Tompkins Financial began courting VIST then.
“Frankly, we saw the same set of management practices and the same moral compass,” Davis says. “They’re honest, straight-forward people and we like to think of ourselves the same way. It was a strategic fit from the get-go.”
Product lines at the two companies are already similar, he adds, but joining with Tompkins will allow VIST to bring a trusts and estates business to its markets. Davis also says the acquisition will allow VIST to continue its expansion into the Philadelphia area.
Berks and Schuylkill counties have been the center of most of the bank’s history, but the institution began expanding toward Philadelphia in the last few years. It’s a more competitive market, but one with attractive growth prospects, Davis says.
VIST has not yet released its fourth-quarter results as of press time. Through the first nine months of 2011, the company earned
$3.2 million, or 30 cents a share, up from $2.6 million, or 22 cents a share, for the same period in 2010.
For the full year in 2011, Tompkins Financial earned $35.4 million, or $3.20 per share, up 4.7 percent from 2010.
First Niagara plans pause in acquisitions
First Niagara Financial Group, Inc. (NASDAQ: FNFG) plans to slow down its recent run of acquisitions and focus on running its business more effectively and efficiently. “It’s time for us to hit the pause button on M&A and ensure we deliver on the promise,” President and CEO John Koelmel said during a Jan. 26 conference
Become a Central New York Business Journal subscriber and get immediate access to all of our subscriber-only content and much more.
Click here to purchase a paywall bypass link for this article.
First Niagara Financial Group, Inc. (NASDAQ: FNFG) plans to slow down its recent run of acquisitions and focus on running its business more effectively and efficiently.
“It’s time for us to hit the pause button on M&A and ensure we deliver on the promise,” President and CEO John Koelmel said during a Jan. 26 conference call, discussing the Buffalo–based banking company’s fourth-quarter results. “It’s all the more imperative given the strength of the headwinds the industry is up against today and we’ll obviously continue to face for the foreseeable future.”
First Niagara is in the midst of acquiring 195 branches in upstate New York, Westchester County, and Connecticut from HSBC. The company raised capital for the deal and announced plans to divest some of the branches involved in recent weeks.
The acquisition is expected to close in the second quarter. It has also completed acquisitions in Pennsylvania and New England in recent years.
First Niagara has $33 billion in assets, more than 330 branch offices, and 5,000 employees in New York, Pennsylvania, Connecticut, and Massachusetts. The addition of the HSBC branches will make it a major player in the Syracuse, Binghamton, and Utica banking markets.
First Niagara will slow down its acquisition strategy for at least the next 12 to 24 months, Koelmel said.
“Over the last 90 days, we’ve been very upfront in messaging that narrowing focus and the M&A pause,” he said. “The communication reflects our recognition that in completing four deals in three years, increasing our footings by a factor of five, stretching our geographic reach across three additional states, we again need to narrowly focus on high performance operational execution of further building out all that we need to be one of the lead players when the economic tide again begins to rise.”
The company does plan to accelerate its commitment to certain business areas like indirect auto lending and credit cards.
First Niagara has plans in place to divest 64 branches with about $3.8 billion in deposits and $713 million in loans. First Niagara expects to bring on no more than $11 billion in deposits with the HSBC deal. The branches to be divested will go to Community Bank, Five Star Bank, and KeyBank.
The company also raised $1.1 billion in new capital during the quarter to help fund the HSBC deal.
Once the acquisition closes and the branch divestitures are complete, First Niagara will have 430 branches, $30 billion in deposits, $38 billion in assets, and more than 6,000 employees in New York, Pennsylvania, Connecticut, and Massachusetts.
For the fourth quarter, First Niagara earned $58.5 million, up more than 27 percent from $45.9 million a year earlier.
Earnings per share in the period totaled 19 cents, down from 22 cents in the fourth quarter of 2010 as the company increased the number of shares outstanding. For the full year in 2011, First Niagara earned $173.9 million, or 64 cents a share, compared with $140.4 million, or 70 cents a share, in 2010.
Operating income for the fourth quarter was $72.1 million, up from $49.7 million in the same period of 2010. The fourth-quarter total for 2011 excludes merger expenses, employee severance, and branch closure costs, according to First Niagara.
The branch closure and severance costs totaled $17 million, but the banking company did not provide details on layoffs in its earnings release.
The branch restructuring is aimed at enhancing the bank’s capabilities in small business and wealth management, First Niagara CFO Gregory Norwood said during the conference call. It will allow the bank to put more small business bankers and financial advisers in branches, he added.
Report: Health-care law increased insurance coverage of 19- to 25-year-olds
The 2010 federal health-care reform law has increased the portion of young adults with health-insurance coverage, according to a national report from the Employee Benefit Research Institute (EBRI). The percentage of individuals ages 19-25 with private health-insurance coverage rose from 51 percent in 2010 to 55.8 percent in the first six months of 2011, according
Become a Central New York Business Journal subscriber and get immediate access to all of our subscriber-only content and much more.
Click here to purchase a paywall bypass link for this article.
The 2010 federal health-care reform law has increased the portion of young adults with health-insurance coverage, according to a national report from the Employee Benefit Research Institute (EBRI).
The percentage of individuals ages 19-25 with private health-insurance coverage rose from 51 percent in 2010 to 55.8 percent in the first six months of 2011, according to the EBRI report, which analyzed data from the U.S. Census Bureau and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s National Health Interview Survey.
That lines up with a provision of the health-care reform law that required group health plans and insurers to allow children under 26 years old to receive coverage through their parents’ health-insurance plans. The dependent-coverage portion of the law took effect for policy years starting on or after Sept. 23, 2010.
The EBRI report also showed that the percentage of uninsured 19- to 25-year-olds dipped from 33.9 percent in 2010 to 28.8 percent midway through 2011.
“That’s a big drop,” says Paul Fronstin, EBRI’s Health Research and Education Program director and the author of the report.
“The number may continue to come down.”
EBRI, which is based in Washington, D.C., did not have data for the second half of 2011.
The fall in uninsured rates was not matched by the adult population as a whole, the report found. In 2010, 22.3 percent of adults ages 18-64 were uninsured. That portion decreased just 1 point to 21.3 percent in the first half of 2011.
Nor did the overall population gain private health insurance at a similar rate to 19- to 25-year-olds. In 2010, 64.1 percent of 18- to 64-year-olds had private health coverage, a portion that edged up to just 64.2 percent in the first six months of 2011.
“The health-care law [provision] only affects young adults or adult dependents,” Fronstin says. “And we saw an increase in the number of them, or the percentage of them, that had coverage. We did not see any kind of increase among older people.”
EBRI also looked at employment-based health-insurance coverage for young adults between 2009 and 2010. The data available for those years allowed the institute to look at whether adults had coverage in their own names or as dependents.
The portion of adults ages 19-25 with employment-based coverage as dependents increased from 24.7 percent in 2009 to 27.7 percent in 2010, EBRI found. But the portion of 26- to 64-year-olds with coverage as dependents remained virtually the same — 17.4 percent in 2009 and 17.2 percent in 2010.
Fronstin says he was skeptical at such a large jump in 19- to 25-year-old’s coverage rates when he first saw those results, because the health-reform law did not take effect until the last part of 2010. But after further review, he realized many insurers started to open dependent coverage to older children before the September date outlined in the law.
“A lot of insurance companies said, ‘We’re going to apply this early,’” he says. “They made the announcement in May because that’s when a lot of college students would be leaving their parents’ plans. And it’s not constructive to lose them and then reenroll them a couple months later.”
Meanwhile, the portion of 19- to 25-year-olds with employment-based coverage in their own names dropped 2.5 points between 2009 and 2010. It was 20 percent in 2009 but fell to 17.5 percent in 2010.
Older adults did not experience a similar decline. In 2009, 46.6 percent of 26- to 64-year-olds had employment-based coverage in their own names, while 45.9 percent had such coverage in 2010.
Using another set of data for a more detailed examination of 2010, the EBRI report found the portion of young adults with dependent employment-based coverage inched up in October and November — after the reform law took effect.
Between January and September of 2010, 26.9 percent of 19- to 25-year-olds had employment-based health benefits as dependents. That crept up to 27.1 percent in October and November.
But the portion of 26- to 64-year-olds with dependent employment-based health benefits dropped at the end of 2010. Between January and September, 18.5 percent of 26- to 64-year-olds had dependent employment-based health benefits. Just 18.2 percent had such benefits in October and November.
New York moves to set up health-insurance exchange
A health-benefit exchange for New York State is back on the table, and it could change the insurance market for small businesses. But at this point, experts say it’s unclear exactly how. Gov. Andrew Cuomo included legislation in his 2012-13 proposed state budget that would set up a health-insurance exchange in New York. The exchange
Become a Central New York Business Journal subscriber and get immediate access to all of our subscriber-only content and much more.
Click here to purchase a paywall bypass link for this article.
A health-benefit exchange for New York State is back on the table, and it could change the insurance market for small businesses. But at this point, experts say it’s unclear exactly how.
Gov. Andrew Cuomo included legislation in his 2012-13 proposed state budget that would set up a health-insurance exchange in New York. The exchange would meet requirements in the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, the 2010 federal health-care reform law.
While it has yet to be approved by legislators, attorneys say small businesses may want to keep an eye on it — even if they don’t currently provide insurance to their workers.
“Most small employers are pretty excited about it and should be tuned in,” says Kathleen Centolella, a partner at Syracuse–based Green & Seifter, Attorneys, PLLC which specializes in employee benefits. “It gives them a one-stop shop to potentially provide insurance when they haven’t in the past.”
The legislation in the governor’s budget is similar to health-insurance exchange legislation that stalled in the legislature last year, Centolella says. It is also similar to guidelines set forth by the federal Department of Health and Human Services.
In theory, the exchange could take some of the administrative burdens away from small businesses offering health care, according to Centolella. It could make it easier for employers to pick a level of health-care insurance they are willing to provide and give employees the choice to enroll in a plan, she says.
That’s because in addition to setting up a market for individual health insurance, the exchange legislation calls for setting up a Small Business Health Options Program (SHOP) to help employers enroll their employees in the group-insurance market. The governor’s budget proposal estimates the exchange would be completely funded by the federal government, extend health coverage to more than 1 million uninsured state residents, and reduce the cost of small-business health insurance by 22 percent.
The proposed exchange would set up five-member regional advisory committees for New York City, metropolitan suburban, northern, central, and western regions in the state. That could help the exchange meet needs in different areas, Centolella says.
“The fact that we have regional boards I think is one of the most important, unique aspects of New York’s exchange,” she says. “Because the market is different downstate than it is here. And the population is different.”
However, Centolella points out that it is too soon to know exactly how the exchange would work. The legislation leaves many components to be worked out in the future, she says.
“The devil is in the details,” she says. “I’ll be curious to see once the actual technology is created how it works and how it looks. Like anything that’s IT driven, if it doesn’t work well, you lose a lot of potential users. The last thing they need is something that’s complicated.”
Her caution was shared by Jill Muratori, vice president and counsel at Albany–based Barrett Associates and legislative representative for the Independent Insurance Agents & Brokers of New York, Inc. (IIABNY). IIABNY, based in DeWitt, is a not-for profit trade association of independent insurance professionals.
The proposed exchange legislation lacks many details and leaves much to be determined, Muratori says.
“Currently the legislation sets up a basic framework for this exchange to get up and running,” she says. “There are a lot of things on the to-do list for the people who are going to be on the [exchange’s] board of directors.”
IIABNY is pleased that the exchange will not cut insurance agents and brokers out of the health-insurance market, according to Muratori. They could be appointed to the exchange’s nine-member board of directors or sit on its five regional councils, and brokers and agents will still be able help consumers find insurance, she says.
Federal law requires the exchange to be up and running by 2014, so Muratori expects the proposal to be passed in New York this year, so the state can be prepared.
“There are a whole bunch of deadlines,” she says. “I really think [legislators] have to do something this session.”
Excellus reopening enrollment for two plans in Oswego County
Excellus BlueCross BlueShield will begin taking new members for its family Health Plus and HMOBlue Option plans in Oswego County starting Feb. 1. Excellus, which is Central New York’s largest health insurer, had stopped enrolling new members in those plans in recent years. It closed the plans to new enrollees in 2005 but continued to
Become a Central New York Business Journal subscriber and get immediate access to all of our subscriber-only content and much more.
Click here to purchase a paywall bypass link for this article.
Excellus BlueCross BlueShield will begin taking new members for its family Health Plus and HMOBlue Option plans in Oswego County starting Feb. 1.
Excellus, which is Central New York’s largest health insurer, had stopped enrolling new members in those plans in recent years. It closed the plans to new enrollees in 2005 but continued to cover members who had signed up with the plans before that.
The insurer decided to sign up new members after a request from the New York State Department of Health, according to Sheila Betters, director of sales and marketing for safety net and state-government programs at Excellus. The state asked Excellus to renew its services in Oswego County after another insurer, Syracuse–based Total Care, Inc., decided to stop offering similar insurance in the county, she says.
“[The state] wanted to be able to keep a well-rounded set of options available to people in that community,” Betters says. “We’re happy to do it. It was something that had been discussed, so this was just a great way to make it happen.”
Family Health Plus is a state-sponsored, managed-care health-insurance program. It is aimed at adults 19 years old to 64 years old with incomes that are too high to qualify for Medicaid.
HMOBlue Option is Excellus’ Medicaid managed-care plan. It is for individuals who are eligible for Medicaid, although some people who receive Supplemental Security Income also qualify.
Members of the Excellus plans can choose from 9,000 doctors, specialists, and hospital providers throughout the insurer’s coverage area, which includes Central New York, Rochester, the Southern Tier, and Utica. The plans cover vital services, although co-pays sometimes apply.
Excellus decided to close enrollment in Family Health Plus and HMOBlue Option in 2005 to review the programs, according to Betters.
“We just decided to take a breather to make sure we had the structures that we wanted to have in place and the services available to support our membership,” she says. “It’s more about inner workings and everything that’s in place for membership.”
Excellus made no major changes to the plans now that they are being reopened in Oswego County, Betters says. Excellus will continue to review the programs and look for ways to improve them, she adds.
The health insurer expects to add about 3,500 Oswego County members to the two plans combined after enrollment opens Feb. 1. The new members will likely come quickly, Betters says, as individuals seek to maintain their health insurance while Total Care pulls out.
About 128,000 people are enrolled in Excellus HMOBlue Option plans throughout the insurer’s Utica, Rochester, Central New York, and Southern Tier regions. Another 21,000 are enrolled in Family Health Plus in those regions.
Excellus will not have to heavily advertise the opening of the programs to potential enrollees in Oswego County, Betters says. Local and state-government agencies typically help eligible individuals enroll in the programs, she says.
“There’s a natural flow of information,” Betters says. “They would help with the enrollment to any of the plans.”
Excellus BlueCross BlueShield is a not-for-profit independent licensee of the BlueCross BlueShield Association. The insurer is headquartered in Rochester and bases its Central New York operations in Syracuse.
Greek Peak must find new lender following bank closure
VIRGIL — Greek Peak Mountain Resort must refinance several loans after regulators shut down its lender, Nashville–based Tennessee Commerce Bank, last week. Loans made to
Deconstructing the American Dream
I want to thank President Barack Obama for delivering his third “State of the Union” address, in which the 44th president of the United States laid out clearly his vision of the American Dream.The president embraces 100 years of “progressivism,” which rejects a free-market society. Today, we call progressivism “liberalism,” not to be confused with
Become a Central New York Business Journal subscriber and get immediate access to all of our subscriber-only content and much more.
Click here to purchase a paywall bypass link for this article.
I want to thank President Barack Obama for delivering his third “State of the Union” address, in which the 44th president of the United States laid out clearly his vision of the American Dream.
The president embraces 100 years of “progressivism,” which rejects a free-market society. Today, we call progressivism “liberalism,” not to be confused with classic 19th-century liberalism. Liberalism considers capitalism inherently evil, requiring a strong, central government to rein in its “excesses.” Thus, the federal government needs to actively regulate the economy by assigning technocrats who know what is best both for the collective society and for individuals. Those technocrats who are truly knowledgeable know better than the marketplace where capital should be invested and which industries must be supported.
Government, not the individual, must also be the protector against anything unfortunate in our lives, advocates of liberalism believe. To institute freedom from want, society needs universal child care and health care, higher education for all, welfare benefits for the less fortunate, labor protection, agencies to manipulate the boom-and-bust cycles, and pensions for the elderly.
President Obama wraps his dream of America in a cloak of fairness. He casts himself in the populist role as the defender of the middle class, which is being squeezed by the rapaciousness of the 1 percent who are super rich. To the current sitting president, free enterprise has eroded the basic American promise of opportunity. In the words of the president, the defining issue is to “… restore an economy where everyone gets a fair shot, everyone does their fair share, and everyone plays by the same set of rules.”
From whence floweth fairness? From the federal government, of course. The president, in his speech, cited the “Buffett Rule” as a prime example of fairness. No one deemed rich by the president should pay a lower rate of federal-income tax than Warren Buffett’s secretary.
Kudos to the president for explaining his vision of America for all to understand.
Mitch Daniels, governor of Indiana, rebutted the president’s vision with a strong defense of free enterprise and capitalism. Daniels chided the president for assuming the state of the economy was strong and getting stronger while the unemployment rate remains stubbornly high and our spending and indebtedness are on a trajectory to take down the economy and the safety nets created by government. He also debunked the notion that government could create a middle class of government workers based on borrowed money.
Unlike the president, the governor called for a passionate, pro-growth approach that generates private-sector jobs. Unlike President Obama, Gov. Daniels praised business rather than bashed it and called for a simpler tax code with fewer loopholes and lower rates and an end to the piling on of expensive, new regulations. Unlike the president, he sought a unity of effort rather than a division pitting one segment of society against another.
The differences in the two visions couldn’t have been clearer. Too bad Messrs. Romney and Gingrich couldn’t build on Daniel’s rebuttal; unfortunately, they were too busy punching each other rhetorically in the groin. Gov. Romney did finally, under duress, release his 2010 federal-tax return and his projected 2011 return. News flash: The governor is rich.
What a perfect opportunity to defend a life of hard work and taking risks creating and turning around businesses — the ultimate American dream. What a perfect opportunity to attack the current tax code as convoluted and anti-growth, explaining that capital-gains taxes are added to the corporate tax, generating an effective rate of 44.75 percent before adding on state, local, and any estate taxes. Too bad the opportunity was lost as the former governor of Massachusetts continued to focus on hammering the former Speaker of the House. And to Mr. Gingrich’s eternal discredit, too bad he suggested that Romney’s wealth was somehow ill-gotten rather than focusing on the vision of a “city on the hill.”
I have experienced free enterprise from the perspective of an entrepreneur. Next year is my 50th year running a business in our region, and this past year marked 25 years of interviewing thousands of business owners, managers, entrepreneurs, and wannabes as the publisher of The Business Journal. I have witnessed how an individual with a dream takes risks by applying his/her God-given talents in the hope of experiencing success. The best arbiter of success is the marketplace, where individuals freely decide what constitutes the pursuit of happiness. The ladder of opportunity has, despite the president’s assertions, drawn the diminishing middle class into the ranks of the rich. In the past 30 years, the percentage of households making more than $105,000 in inflation-adjusted income has more than doubled from 11 percent to 24 percent.
Unlike President Obama, I find those running a business to be society’s heroes, deserving of praise, not opprobrium. They not only create wealth for all in our society, but they also give back generously to enhance our communities. What is most surprising is that they accomplish this under a growing burden of taxation, regulation, and a playing field where the goals posts are always in motion. Contrary to liberalism’s assumptions, capitalism is not dehumanizing. Personally, I find it to be uplifting.
De Tocqueville told us that democracy extends the sphere of individual freedom; it attaches all possible values to each person. Progressivism, 21st-century liberalism, collectivism, statism — whatever you call it — makes each of us an agent, a number in a society where others tell us what is best. Both concepts claim to seek equality in liberty: capitalism promotes freedom from coercion, liberalism relies on coercion and restraint.
To me, the president’s State of the Union address deconstructs the American Dream that has made the United States an exceptional nation and the beacon to the world. It’s critical to point out that he is tearing down the ladder of opportunity by promoting a society in which risk is not rewarded. We have a clear choice to make about what kind of society we want.
I cast my vote for capitalism and a society in which the individual has the maximum freedom to make a choice. I vote for a strong, pro-growth agenda where the marketplace, not government, picks winners and losers. I vote for a simple and predictable tax system and government benefits that are means-tested. I vote to create more successful business people to join the 1 percent castigated as the super-rich. I believe in a restrained government, not one on the path to fiscal obesity.
It’s time to reconstruct the dream. It’s time to cast your vote.
Norman Poltenson is publisher of The Central New York Business Journal. Contact him at npoltenson@cnybj.com
Stay up-to-date on the companies, people and issues that impact businesses in Syracuse, Central New York and beyond.