As Chenango County heads into 2021 the pandemic dominates daily life, including the economy and almost all government functions.
Even democratic principles have taken a back-seat to New York State’s response to the pandemic, with the state being essentially ruled by a single branch of government through executive orders issued by Governor Andrew Cuomo for most of 2020.
Nursing homes in particular have been devastated as New York State has botched the initial vaccine distribution. About a third of the reported deaths in Chenango County at the end of January 2021 were from local nursing homes.
Chenango County and many rural areas have struggled to get vaccines. Under intense pressure the vaccination process is slowly picking up steam but health officials estimate optimistically it will be late summer or early fall before the vaccine brings enough relief to begin a return to normal life.
The county’s top priority for 2021
“The first priority, and it may be for a while, is dealing with COVID-19. COVID will continue to be a focus,” said newly appointed Chenango County Board of Supervisor Chairman George Seneck. He is the Town of Guilford supervisor.
“We are not where the state is saying we’re at. We’re not at 1B. I think you see stuff coming out of the governor’s office and it’s hard as a small county like this to get the information out.”
Though people who are 65 or older now qualify for the vaccine county health officials are still struggling to get vaccines for area emergency workers and the nursing home residents, who were supposed to be top priority.
Local officials have advised those in need to seek vaccines from pharmacy and hospital sites offering it because the state has been so unreliable in making deliveries to the local health departments.
“As we move beyond the horizon of 2021, the COVID pandemic will continue to test our reserve for rural counties such as ours, the distribution of vaccine to eligible and willing participants is going to be a challenge,” Seneck said.
“The governor’s office, is saying we’re moving to 1B. We’re not there yet. We’re not done with 1A yet, as far as people that qualify to get the vaccine.”
At the end of January, the county was still trying to get enough vaccines for those classified in the top 1A category. “The 1A, you’re looking at hospital employees, nurses, doctors, medical, EMTs.”
Of those in the 1A group, locally only about 50 percent of emergency medical responders were willing to be vaccinate. The county is still working to vaccinate nursing home residents, those most vulnerable to the pandemic.
“Still to my understanding, we still haven’t managed to provide vaccines to all of our nursing home people. I think that is very important,” said Seneck.
“So, we have that portion of the population and they are very vulnerable. I think they’d be best served, if they so choose to want the vaccine, to be able to have it. We are months out. I really don’t think that we’re going to be able to service the population in Chenango County, as far as vaccine is concerned, well into April or May.”
Until more vaccines are available officials urged area residents to continue to following health guidelines, wear a mask, stay six feet away from each other, sanitize possible exposures and practice a healthy lifestyle.
How did the county first respond to the pandemic?
In February officials began to understand the COVID-19 virus was going to have a significant impact, but information was scarce and officials were left guessing on what the reality might be.
County leaders were unsure of how to respond and the Chenango County Health Department run by Public Health Director Marcas Flindt and the County Emergency Management Services, headed by Emergency Services Coordinator Matthew Beckwith, led Chenango County’s official response to the pandemic, and they still do.
The Chenango County board of supervisors never organized a unified response to the pandemic or even had a meeting about how to respond. They released almost no information to the public. Over 2020 health officials did not regularly appear at county board meetings, and the board did not ask for regular updates, apart from a few presented in lower committees or made to individual supervisors.
In a coordinated effort, Beckwith and Flindt began offering information to the public.
The health department had Chenango County Medical Director Dr. Scott Cohen, who also works for the Basset Healthcare Network, help organize virtual weekly and biweekly meetings. With the help of Bassett Healthcare they provided regular information to dozens of community partners. They included local leaders, businesses, charities and others who were seeking information on how to respond.
“I really think the county health department has done a tremendous job. I do think as a county we need to do a better job of getting information out to the public. Which is tough,” said Seneck.
At first the health department predicted the virus would be at least as dangerous as a worst-case flu season, which could kill more than 50,000 people in a peak year.
“But at that point in time, we were scrambling for information - we simply didn’t know. And I think there was a lot of panic mode,” explained Seneck.
“I had panic mode on my part. I had Lysol spray. My shoes got sprayed when I got back in the car. We weren’t going any place. You had gloves on. You had masks.”
“At the town we responded pretty quickly. We ordered personal protective supplies right away and we had some stuff, but I said ‘I don’t know where this is going, but I can tell you what’s going to happen is you won’t be able to get things,’” he said.
In a surprise move Seneck was made Chenango County’s chairman at the start of 2021, after the public, along with a number of other supervisors and local leaders began expressing concern over the board’s response to a number of issues related to the pandemic, including a lack of technology investment and the pending loss of private ambulance services.
“I kind of know the way county politics work is that months prior to January you need to start putting things in motion, and seeing whether or not if you have enough supervisors to support you. There was dissatisfaction regarding communication regarding COVID,” said Seneck.
“I talked to people and they want more updates on what’s going on with COVID. The health department has done an outstanding job, but people look to the supervisors in the town as if we know what’s going on,” he said.
In early 2020 before he was appointed chairman Seneck took other actions in the Town of Guilford.
“We were scrambling and looking for the best information possible. This was something new and there were a lot of adjustments that had to be made. At that time I was making - it was more a town response.
He began searching for answers to questions that could soon impact Guilford.
“Can we open our parks? Can we operate our summer youth program? We researched the CDC data and so forth and we determined we just cannot meet the CDC requirements. I think that happened across the county in a lot of different places. It was the first time that I can ever recall we didn’t have an arts and crafts program at the town. We didn’t have the summer swim program. We’ve looked at some options of doing it virtually, and then the people who would have been working in the program didn’t think it would work. I said, ‘Well, we have a Zoom account at the town. I certainly can set this up for you. You know we can put together arts and crafts packets and so forth.”
The town took immediate steps to cuts costs, hoping to get ahead of the pending economic crunch and was successful in avoiding layoffs of town employees.
“There was some discussion about are we going to have to lay workers off and stuff and what’s the bottom dollar line, as far as services and what we can save for costs. As a public service provider, if workers are laid off, you’re going to have personnel costs with unemployment and so forth, and other issues with not getting the public what it needs. It might even cost more in the long run.”
Chenango County blindsided by rise of technology
“One of the things that I think has to happen in Chenango County and I guess it’s going to become my number two priority, after COVID, is we have to improve the technology on which the county operates.”
When COVID arrived and Cuomo ordered a lockdown, the county was not prepared for remote operation, with only about 15 to 20 people able to access work systems from home, out of more than a hundred workers.
“When we tried putting more people on the system, the system froze up or collapsed,” confirmed Seneck.
The figure improved overtime and today there are a number of employees able to work remotely but when asked how many Seneck responded, “I know it was increased at that time, I think the plan was to double it and to be honest I really am looking for some updated information.”
Unable to work remotely many local government employees were paid to stay home and not work.
Pressed about the issue Seneck admitted, “Yeah, basically people were getting paid to stay home.”
The situation caused by the pandemic, a lack of understanding by state officials issuing mandates and a lack of technology, made for hard choices for rural public officials.
Seneck said, “I think there was a lack of clarity on the part of the governor’s office, and I think the same thing impacted the county.”
“I know there was a move here to have people work remotely, but in order to work remotely you have to have, I’m going to say ‘The ability to have employees do that.’”
He said Guilford had the same issue, facing unemployment payments and then the challenge of trying to bring back staff or hire new employees if things change. That presented additional cost and challenges. So officals opted to just keep people home.
“At the town what we did was cut our workforce 50 percent. We continue to pay people. Our highway crew we cut it in half and people were on a rotating schedule for several weeks,” explained Seneck. “We finally got back to the point where we had everybody in.”
The county attempted to get tablets for employees through a grant, with Seneck saying, “You know you’re not going to take your desktop with you.”
Seneck said he was still trying to understand the issues saying, “If you’re going to work remotely, certainly you can. If you’re connected via the Internet and have a computer and so forth. I have no idea where the county is with that, as far as what laptops we have, what tablets we have.”
Apart from employees the need to invest in the county’s technological infrastructure has also impacted the public.
There is a lack of basic cell phone service and internet for those living outside the Route 12 corridor and main population centers. In today’s reality of remote work demands and health uncertainties, this has cost some people their livelihoods or increased their chance of being exposed to COVID.
“Internet is huge concern; we have people in Chenango County that don’t even have internet in areas. A lot of school kids are remote and unless you have internet, how can you work remotely? It places a portion of our population; especially young people at a severe disadvantage,” said Seneck.
County leaders have been aware of the issues for years, and in the past, some even questioned the need to update the infrastructure, while others admitted to hardly even using a computer or a smart phone themselves.
Asked if there are still members of the Chenango County Board who don’t use computers at home Seneck admitted, “Sure we have board members who don’t use computers.”
Seneck said he was encouraging officials to learn more about technology. Since becoming chairmen he has met with a number of department heads and gets updates from the county’s technology department. He told the department to develop a technology action plan for the county in 2021.
Why wasn’t the county investing in technology?
“That’s going to be a difficult question for me to answer,” said Seneck.
“I think probably the best thing I can say is Chenango County is very fiscally conservative, which has served the county well and I think at times there’s been a reluctance to invest in our own future. And if we don’t take a look at some of that investment, we’re not going to go anywhere,” he said.
“I don’t know whether it was a lack of direction, a lack of knowledge. You know I’m not a real super techie person myself. But I really have felt that we need to use technology.”
Seneck recalled a conversation and a remark from a fellow supervisor made years ago as the board debated spending more to develop better internet service in the county.
“We were talking about investment in broadband and there was a big debate whether the county should be investing in broadband and so forth and he said, ‘You know when the next best thing comes along, you may not want to be the first person who gets on the bus, but if it proves pretty good, you better make sure you get on the bus before it takes off.’”
“And my feeling is the bus left a long time ago and we’re going to have to run to catch up with the bus, and to catch up with where technology is going to take us,” said Seneck.
Seneck said he hopes to improve the county website.
“Is that something that really should be updated? Yes, if you want to promote business in the county, I think that the county website works fairly well. You know you can go in and you can find information there and so forth, but really in today’s world it’s a piece of media that’s out there and it needs to be inviting.”
He also explained the county’s technology department had been operating without a full staff and that it is hard to find new employees, especially younger ones. He said pay was probably an issue, but also explained the older patchwork of dated systems likely turned off potential new hires who may prefer a more updated environment.
County still recovering from October cyberattack
In the middle of all these challenges the county suffered its worst cyberattack ever a few weeks before the November 2020 election.
The October cyberattack crippled the county’s services and infrastructure. It took emails and databases offline. County election officials blamed the attack for complications that caused 55 votes to be forgotten and not counted as they should have been.
By the end of January 2021 some systems, especially older ones, like the current mapping software used by the county tax department, was still offline. That system is from 2012.
“Personally, I think the hack was worse than what was initially thought,” said Seneck. He said so far, no private information about residents was compromised. “I tend to think a lot of archival information was lost.”
In December the county board authorized at least $200,000 on repairs, with servers and half the county’s computers, about 200 machines, being encrypted by malware and rendered unusable. The figures do not count the time lost by employees having to use more laborious paper systems and other work-arounds until repairs were completed.
The New York State Board of Elections repair specialists, along with federal Homeland Security investigators, secured the county’s voting systems in the days before the election.
The county is trying to repair the rest, but the task is a serious challenged.
“It’s been kind of the county’s position is that this is something we can take care of ourselves and I think this is bigger than what our IT department can handle. We may need to be looking for outside help for this,” said Seneck.
Another issue raised was how the county shared information about the October cyberattack. Officials initially downplayed the attack but when it became clear that votes cast in the 2020 elections were being impacted, local election officials were forced to reveal the extent it had impacted their department, and the county as a whole.
The former leadership even kept other board supervisors and those working in the county government in the dark.
Seneck said he found out about the hack indirectly and only drips of information were released about it.
“I made calls, and I continued to call. I was pretty frustrated that over a week had passed and I was getting limited information from the department heads I was going through, and they had limited information.”
“My recollection is there was about a 45-minute discussion by the supervisors that were there, which I found difficult to swallow,” he said.
“Because there was a lack of understanding of software and licensing and how if you expanded your ability, you also have to expand your licensing for your firewalls and stuff, and I find that sometimes frustrating.”
Over time the extent of the attack became clear.
“On our end we have to look at it as a learning curve. I don’t want to say too much, I was not in charge at the time. I think at least the people involved needed to share more information. I’ll talk about the board of supervisors: We really, first of all, we didn’t even know it happened,” he said.
Like the health department, the county’s technology director did not give the board regular updates during 2020, or even during the cyberattack itself. The board released no information to the public directly.
Asked if the technology department was ever asked to brief the board Seneck replied, “Not to my knowledge.”
“I think we need to work on the technology at the county and I don’t know that we have a handle on what we have here as far as: How many computers exactly do we have? How old are they? I don’t know that there’s an adequate inventory. I don’t know exactly what all the software is that we’re using, and some of the software is what you’re going to call ‘proprietary software’ that performs certain functions.”
Moving the county forward
The appointment of Seneck has been seen by many as a significant turning point in how the county will move forward.
He is promoting reform, education and transparency.
The county is now collecting information and conducting an inventory of its technology. Seneck has met with the IT department several times.
“I told them they win the award that I know the names of everybody in the department already and I do have to rely on them for some service to get my computer working,” he said.
He also wants the board to get more information from the technology department and learn more about the county’s systems.
“We need more of a basic understanding. I think we need to do some education pieces for the board related to technology,” Seneck said.
“Certainly, you may not be using this technology but you need to have an understanding of what we’re doing and why we’re doing it. You’re here to make an educated decision on how we move forward, so that education piece is going to be important for the board members.”
“I know we have some supervisors who really don’t like using computers who aren’t too computer savvy, but you need to understand how those pieces fit in with county government,” he said.
The county and towns hope to release more information regarding COVID. The county is working with the health department and others to promote technology literacy and assistance, especially to elderly generations who have a hard time using a computer.
“What else can we possibly do? It’s going to be a challenge. We have an aging population in this County. One of the things that was talked about when we had the department meeting is that after people get their first vaccine, they’re going to have to be on a state registry to make sure they get their second vaccine. We have a lot of senior citizens who do not do anything with computers. There may be a service we need to provide,” he said.
The county is also keeping a close eye on expenses and delaying some projects to save money.
“Maintaining the fiscal integrity of Chenango County amidst a pandemic is going to be an ongoing challenge, that I am sure we will be able to meet.”
“I am reaching out to the residents of Chenango County to ask themselves what they can do to build a better 2021 for us.”
“I ask you, ‘What can you do as a member of the county board of supervisors for the residents and businesses of Chenango County? I would ask you be as informed as possible, that you read your committee minutes before coming to the board sessions. That you continue to ask questions and invest some of your time in understanding where technology is taking us in 2021.”