October is Domestic Violence Awareness Month

During DVAM, advocates, professionals, survivors, and community stakeholders unite to bring attention to lives lost to domestic violence, celebrate progress made in advocacy, and connect with others working in the field.

Everyone can play a role in bringing about change.

Events to raise awareness of domestic violence and its impact on individuals, families, and communities take place throughout the year. The Maricopa Association of Governments host a regional events calendar for the Phoenix area.

Further statewide events and resources can be found through the Arizona Coalition to End Sexual and Domestic Violence. Further national  materials can be found through the Office of Family Violence Prevention and Services.

The National Domestic Violence Hotline has immediate resources for those fleeing violence, too.

We Installed a Solar Power System at Our House: This is Our Story

We decided we’d look into getting a rooftop solar power system at our house back when the Inflation Reduction Act passed, locking in a 30% tax credit for installing a rooftop solar energy system. With the generous tax credit, we figured this would be a good time to put the money on the table and reduce our utility bills while doing our part to lower our family’s carbon emissions.

Getting Started

I was reading this City of Phoenix newsletter that comes in the mail. In it, I saw this little blurb about how you can sign up for this free co-op called Solar United Neighbors. Solar United signs up lots of people interested in installing rooftop solar. Once they have enough people signed up, they go out for a collective bid. Using their scaled-up negotiating power, they can get better terms. This is what I liked the most, they do the price negotiating for you.

I signed up for the Solar United Neighbors co-op in early June 2023. By July 15, I got an email from a company called Sunny Energy, who was awarded the bid. I got my contact at Sunny Energy some basic information, like the last couple of years of our SRP utility bill and our address – and he said he’d come back with a bid for what makes the most sense given our roofline, sun exposure and electricity use patterns.

Sizing Your System

We talked about how much capacity we wanted before he came back with a proposed site plan. He explained that if you buy an oversized system it’ll take you longer to get your ‘payback’ – which is basically the number of years it’ll take to make up for your initial solar investment with lower utility bills.

Whenever you’re making more energy than you need at the time you have to sell it back to your utility at fire sale prices. The sell-back prices vary depending on the utility you have and what the AZ Corporation Commission has approved as a buyback rate.

How much SRP will pay you for your extra electricity depends on the plan that you pick. On the Customer Generation and Average Demand price plans the excess energy you make and send back to them is credited to your bill- but that plan comes with a monthly fee. You’ll get back the same value you would have paid for that energy had you purchased it from SRP.

If you pick the TOU Export and EV Export price plans, SRP will credit you just $0.0281 per kWh and subtract it from your bill (that’s a very low rate by the way). Here are the SRP solar price plans | SRP

By comparison, APS pays you $0.076 per kwh for your extra electricity, but they reduce that 10% per year for 10 years.  However, the Arizona Corporation Commission has opened the docket to explore dramatically cutting the buyback rate to just $0.053 per kwh, also subject to the 10% per year reduction. See: Corporation Commission Sets Stage to Drastically Cut Rooftop Solar Buyback Rates

Taking into consideration our energy use, the easily useable rooftop space, shade, and other factors, we decided to go with a 9600kW system – 24 panels on top of our garage. So far, we’re on SRP’s Export Plan – which is only paying us about 1/2 the value of the extra electricity we’re making. 

How Much Did It Cost?

The initial bid for the 24 panel 9600kW system was $22,000. The federal tax credit is 30% of that total, or $6,600, and with the state tax credit of $1,000, the initial cost of the system would have been $14,500. At the current utility rate for electricity, the 24 panels are expected to reduce our utility bill by about $200/month, meaning that the ‘payback’ for the system would have been about 7 years. We discovered that our very old service panel wouldn’t accommodate the solar system -so we needed a new panel to the tune of $3,000 extra. But that counts toward the tax credit too, so the new panel ended up costing just an extra $2K.

Note: To get the full 30% tax credit you need to have a tax obligation sufficient to cover the installation.

15% of the contract amount was due at signing. The second invoice was for 35% of the contract amount and was due upon design review. The 3rd invoice was also for 35% of the contract amount and was due prior to installation. The final 15% was due after installation and city inspections, but just before SRP comes out to install the new service meter.

Off to the Races

Once all the contracts were signed (about July 20) the whole thing went very fast. Within a couple of days, the Sunny Energy work crew measured everything. They built the plan using the measurements, developed the plan and turned it in to the City of Phoenix and SRP – who need to approve the plan and provide the permits. If you have an HOA, they may need to approve the plan as well. Both the City and SRP approved the plans pretty fast, within a couple of weeks. Note: State law preempts HOAs from unreasonably limiting rooftop solar installation.

Installation of the panels and the inverter (which converts the DC electricity to usable AC current) happened on August 17. Installation was done in about 3 hours from start to finish.

By August 25, just 5 weeks after we signed the contract, we were done except for installing the utility meter.

Inspections

Once the panels are up and the electrical system finished the fire department needs to inspect it. Once they say it’s ok, the city inspector needs to say it’s OK too (give it a green tag). The inspections happened really fast for us. There seems to be some kind of electronic tracking system because whenever one inspection was finished the next one happened right away.

Your contractor will submit a request to your utility company for a “Permission to Operate” your system. For us, that Permission to Operate required the installation of a new meter that will allow for your system to be commissioned.

Commissioning the Utility Meter

A couple days after the city gave their approval (green tag) I got an email from SRP scheduling the installation of the new meter… which was set for just 3 days from notification (September 1). Right after I got the notice from SRP that they’d be installing the new meter on 9/1, Sunny Energy let me know that they’d be out for the final walk-through on September 5.

Day 50: Making Electricity!

The technician arrived for the final walk-through on Sept 5, about 50 days after first contact with Sunny Energy. He hooked the signal generator on the inverter to our home Wi-Fi. The inverter can then send real-time data to you, which helps you see how much energy you’re consuming in the house relative to what you’re generating from the panels.

I was able to get a first reading from the panels at about 3:00pm on this sunny afternoon. It’s simple to log on to see your system. You can even see how well each panel is doing at the moment.

We turned on the system at about 3pm on September 5, a clear day with a high temp of 105F. Even with the A/C units running, we’re still making more power than we’re using. That will change with the time of day, season, and cloud cover – but it sure feels good to be making our own electricity!

That’s our story so far. I highly recommend signing up with Solar United Neighbors to get started and we were pleased with the service, communication and final result we got from Sunny Energy.

AZ Vaccine Congress Meets RE Plummeting Provider Participation in the Vaccines for Children Program

The Vaccines for Children Program makes sure kids whose parents can’t afford vaccines can still get their kids vaccinated. Funding for VFC comes via the CDC, who buys vaccines at a discount and distributes them to states. States distribute them to physicians’ offices & clinics that take part in the VFC program. ADHS manages the VFC program in our state.

The Arizona Partnership for Immunizations held a “Vaccine Congress” meeting last week to discuss potential solutions to major problems that have developed in Arizona’s Vaccines for Children program over the last 8 years.

The central problem discussed was the declining provider participation in the VFC program: Arizona lost 50% of its VFC providers during the Ducey administration – going from 1,200 to 600… reducing access to vaccine, lowering childhood vaccination rates and harming overall AHCCCS network capacity. 

Why the decline? Anecdotally, providers who left VFC over the last few years say they quit because of the administrative hassles imposed on them by the state over the last 8 years (ADHS not AHCCCS).

At the top of the list of grievances is ADHS’ punitive practice (during Director Christ/Herrington’s tenure) of financially punishing providers with wastage rates over 5% making participation financially difficult (see this letter to AZAAP members regarding ADHS’ policy). 

Arizona now only has 6 VFC providers per 10,000 Medicaid eligible kids, while the national average is 24 providers per 10,000 Medicaid kids…  meaning Arizona only has a quarter of the number of VFC providers per Medicaid kid compared with the national average.

For many years, clinics and doctors’ offices were required to be enrolled as a VFC provider to take part in the Medicaid (AHCCCS) program. The enormous drop in VFC participation was narrowing AHCCCS’ network so much that a couple of years ago AHCCCS had to remove that requirement as long as the provider refers the child to somewhere that’s still providing vaccines – often the county health departments. That has put an enormous strain on both families and county health departments and has been contributing to declining vaccination rates.

To shed more light on the causes of plummeting participation and to identify solutions the Arizona Partnership for Immunizations hired the OMNI Institute to explore why so many providers have quit VFC. 

OMNI’s report has 3 goals: 1) assess vaccine coverage gaps; 2) gather current and non-VFC provider perspectives on the challenges of participating in VFC; and 3) review and analyze the implications of federal policies and how states (including Arizona) interpret and implement those policies.

OMNI’s report will also have policy and operational recommendations for how ADHS can make better decisions and inform leadership changes that, if implemented, could stop, and potentially reverse the decline in provider VFC participation.

While OMNI’s report hasn’t been publicly published yet, the principal investigator was on hand at the meeting to present some of their results. 

I took screen shots of the PowerPoint slides presented last week (which had insightful findings about how ADHS can improve provider VFC participation). I’ve decided not to publicly disclose that content until after the full OMNI report is released to give ADHS senior leadership an opportunity to digest the findings and prepare & execute policy and/or staffing changes to address the report’s findings & recommendations.

Related: Righting Arizona’s ‘Vaccines for Children’ Ship

AZ Childhood Vaccination Rates Declined During the Ducey/Christ  Administration: Is it Bad Luck or Bad Policy & Management?

 Childhood Vaccination Rates Continue to Drop In the 2021-2022 School Year

Note: CDC’s VFC State Jurisdiction Operational Guide. provides key direction to ADHS regarding what kind of restitution they can impose and what criteria they need to consider before punishing VFC providers. One of the chapters in the Operational Guide states that: “CDC recommends awardees establish a restitution policy for federal vaccine doses (VFC and 317) that are lost due to provider negligence”. Further, it states that: “Vaccine restitution is the replacement of vaccine doses that were lost due to provider negligence. Restitution criteria are at the discretion of awardees.”

“Awardee restitution policies must state that providers are to replace vaccine on a dose-for-dose basis. This allows the restoration of doses to the VFC-entitled children for whom they are intended. Deviation from this method (e.g., purchasing equipment) may be considered if there are extenuating circumstances for an individual provider location.” 

ADHS should immediately modify their vaccine restitution policy ’ Restitution policy should:

  • Identify examples of typical situations that may require restitution.
  • Set reasonable loss thresholds for when restitution is required.
  • Consider the size of loss, number of previous incidents involving the provider, and the provider location’s response to education and corrective action plans when determining loss thresholds or doses to be replaced.

The Operational Guide is clear that financial penalties aren’t an appropriate way to punish practices. Indeed, anything besides replacing doses requires ADHS to: “… submit written justification to VFC@cdc.gov and receive CDC approval prior to allowing restitution using any method other than dose-for-dose replacement.”

Recommendations

The most urgent thing is to stop the bleeding of even more providers from the VFC program. While I haven’t read the OMNI report- seeing the presentation and listening to the folks in the room at the Congress leads me to these key recommendations:
  1. Immediately suspend assessment of vaccine restitution penalties pending the development of a new ADHS Restitution Policy. Make sure that remaining VFC providers are informed about the suspension of restitution penalties pending development of a new policy to prevent even more providers from bolting.
  2. Develop a new Restitution policy after getting input from providers including the county health departments.
See CDC’s VFC Requirements & Operational Guide

Corporation Commission Sets Stage to Drastically Cut Rooftop Solar Buyback Rates

The Inflation Reduction Act provides good incentives for folks to invest in rooftop solar – offering homeowners a 30% tax credit on the purchase of the system. That brings the ‘payback’ time way down from 11 years to 7 years at current utility rates (depending on the utility).

When rooftop solar people make more electricity than they need they can either buy a battery to store it or sell it back to the utility at something called a Rate Comparison Proxy rate (for APS ratepayers).

At the moment, APS rooftop people can sell their power back to the grid at $.076 per kWh the year following installation. The Arizona Corporation Commission already allows APS to reduce that buyback rate by 10% per year in accordance with the Value of Solar decision.

Last Wednesday the Commission voted 3-2 to go even further and allow utilities to pay customers drastically less for the electricity they produce, including for customers who already invested in solar based on an expected solar export rate.

There was near unanimity among speakers at the Commission hearing last week to urge them to keep things as-is. Solar groups even provided evidence that APS actually pays solar customers a lower rate for their excess energy than it pays for all forms of energy on the open market.

[APS pays an average of $0.08113 per kilowatt hour on the open market for wholesale energy in 2022 versus APS’ current repayment rate for solar of $0.076 per kilowatt hour – and substantially less for ratepayers who installed solar a few years ago].

Nevertheless, 3 of the 5 Commissioners voted to reopen the policy with the intent of dropping reimbursement for extra solar power by 37% in year one after installation with additional 10% per year reductions in subsequent years.

See Myers’ Proposal to Drastically Cut Buyback Rates

People buy rooftop solar systems for many reasons. Some financial, some just to do the right thing to offset their carbon production and some for a combination of both. While the federal tax credit of 30% in the Inflation Reduction Act is an important factor, energy buyback is also a factor, especially when it comes to customers sizing their systems.

Achieving carbon neutrality to mitigate climate change will require a public policy full court press. Discouraging rooftop solar customers from using their own money to invest in systems that generate more energy than they sometimes need reduces the clean rooftop solar energy that could be generated.

See: Arizona has rooftop solar energy pricing that works. Why fuss with it?

The Docket is now open for resetting reimbursement rates for excess solar energy produced by rooftop solar ratepayers. Whether and how much reimbursement will be cut is still an open question – as is whether the new lower rates would apply to people with existing systems or just new ones.

Editorial Note: Sadly, the remarks by the 3 Commissioners who voted to reopen the Value of Solar all had prepared remarks explaining their vote – suggesting their minds have already been made up to reduce reimbursement, perhaps dramatically and retroactively.

It’s probably just a matter of time before reimbursement drops dramatically – reducing incentives for folks to invest their own money on rooftop solar and be part of the solution. Elections matter. A lot.

Corporation Commission Set to Drastically Cut Rooftop Solar Buyback Rates Tomorrow

The Inflation Reduction Act provides good incentives for folks to invest in rooftop solar systems – offering homeowners a 30% tax credit on the purchase of the system. That brings the ‘payback’ time way down from 11 years to 7 years at current utility rates (depending on the utility of course).

When rooftop solar people make more electricity than they need they can either buy a battery to store it or sell it back to the utility at something called a Rate Comparison Proxy rate (for APS ratepayers).

At the moment, APS rooftop people can sell their power back to the grid at $.076 per kWh. The Arizona Corporation Commission allows APS to reduce that buyback rate by 10% per year in accordance with the Value of Solar decision from the Commission a few years ago.

See: Arizona has rooftop solar energy pricing that works. Why fuss with it?

Corporation Commissioner Nick Myers wants much deeper cuts.

A couple months ago proposed cutting the APS’ buyback rate by an additional 37%. The new rate would only be $.053 per kWh. That proposal is on the ACC agenda this Wednesday.

See Myers’ Proposal to Drastically Cut Buyback Rates

People buy rooftop solar systems for many reasons. Some financial, some ethical and some for a combination of both. While the federal tax credit of 30% in the Inflation Reduction Act is an important factor, energy buyback is also a factor, especially when it comes to customers sizing their systems.

Achieving carbon neutrality to mitigate climate change will require a public policy full court press. Discouraging rooftop solar customers from investing in systems that generate more energy than they sometimes need reduces the clean rooftop solar energy that could be generated.

We wrote comments into the Arizona Corporation Commission docket urging the Commission to vote NO on Myers’ proposal. You can Email your comments to the ACC by sending them comments via this link 

I also urge you to take a few minutes and send your comments directly to the Commission for the docket. You can also call in to the meeting or go in person. This Toolkit teaches you how to do it. It’s not complicated.

ADES’ Adult Protective Services Failed to Protect Vulnerable Adults During the Ducey Administration

A new report this week commissioned by the Arizona Auditor General found that Arizona’s Adult Protective Services system was not adequately protecting vulnerable adults from abuse and neglect.

Arizona Auditor General: Examining the Delivery of Services to Vulnerable Adults in AZ Protective Service System

The report found AZ’s system “lacked direction” and conducts lengthy investigations that result in rates of substantiating abuse, neglect and exploitation that are “well below” national levels. For example, during the study period (during the Ducey Administration) APS substantiated less than 1% of reports of abuse and neglect compared with national substantiation rates of between 29% and 33%.

The report suggests it’s not just poor leadership and accountability that led to the scathing results in the report. Staffing levels appear to be one of the root causes. APS caseworkers handled an average of 58 cases per caseworker in fiscal year 2022 compared with best-practice standards of 25/caseworker.

Arizona’s system of protecting vulnerable adults lacking

The report calls for an independent evaluation of the APS investigation process to help determine the causes of the low substantiation rates and poor-quality investigations.

One encouraging note is that ADES didn’t dispute the findings – the standard practice during the previous administration. That suggests the new agency leadership is interested in fixing things – or at least admits that the shortcomings exist.

The ineffectiveness of the APS system during the prior administration is a huge public health problem because when follow-up of complaints is slipshod, and staff is under-resourced, vulnerable adults end up staying in dangerous and neglectful environments.

Phoenix Considering Reinstating Photo Enforcement: Does it Work?

Red light cameras save lives. Photo speed cameras probably don’t.

From 2001 to 2019 the City of Phoenix set up a handful of red-light cameras at strategic intersections with frequent violent crashes. The city council discontinued use of red-light cameras in ’19 because of concerns about “privacy, effectiveness and discrimination”.

The police department is now considering asking the Council to reinstate that authority. Data collected by Phoenix PD suggests that the 12 cameras that had been used prior to 2019 resulted in a 31% drop in red light running crashes at the cross-streets they were used and a 57% drop in red light running crashes in the directions the cameras were facing.

Red-light cameras could return to Phoenix to help police 

The Department is considering several proposals. Some are evidence-based, but some aren’t.

  • Red-light running cameras (evidence-based)
  • Speed cameras at green lights (NOT evidence-based)
  • Fixed midblock speed cameras posted on long stretches of road (not evidence-based)
  • Portable speed towers (not evidence-based)
  • Mobile speed vehicles (not evidence based except around schools)
What’s the public health evidence?

A landmark study for photo enforcement was done by Retting et.al. and published in the American Journal of Public Health examining the impact that photo enforcement had in Oxnard CA after they implemented their photo enforcement program.

Intersections that had red light cameras installed had a 29% reduction in injury crashes.  Right-angle crashes (which often happen because of red light running) were reduced by 32% and right-angle crashes involving injuries were reduced by 68%.  Overall accidents at the intersections were reduced by 7%.

There is less clear evidence that speed cameras are effective public health interventions. There’s almost nothing in the literature that I could find one way or the other for speed cameras.

However, a few years ago a research team that included Dr. Chengcheng Hu, director of biostatistics for the Phoenix campus of the UA Mel and Enid Zuckerman College of Public Health, Dr. Steven Vanhoy, a recent graduate of the UA College of Medicine – Phoenix, and several colleagues from Banner – University Medical Center Phoenixoffers some insight.

The researchers examined crash data along a 26-mile segment of Interstate-10 in Phoenix where speed cameras had been placed every 2 miles as well as a 14-mile control segment where no cameras had been deployed.

They compared crash data from Jan. 1 to Dec. 31, 2009 (when cameras were in place) to data from Jan. 1 to Dec. 31, 2011 (after the cameras had been removed).  They found that the removal of the photo radar cameras was associated with a two-fold increase in admissions to Level 1 Trauma Centers from car crashes in the areas where the cameras were removed.

Nobody likes getting a traffic ticket, but photo red light enforcement can significantly reduce severe injuries if placed in the right intersections. There’s less evidence that photo speed enforcement works, and when used as a revenue generating tool (as it is in Paradise Valley) undermines public support for photo enforcement as a public health intervention as a whole (e.g. photo red-lights).

Congratulations to Our 2023 AzPHA Awardees!

 

Join Us at Our Thursday October 26 Award Event!

 

Thursday, October 26, 2023

5:00pm – 8:30pm

University Club of Phoenix

39 E Monte Vista Rd, Phoenix, AZ 85004

Tickets only $60 and includes food and drinks

Register Today

2023 Awardees

Senator Theresa Hatathlie

Policymaker of the Year

Dr. Theresa Cullen

Senator Andy Nichols Honor Award

Arizona Auditor General

Pete Wertheim Public Health Leadership Award

Auditor General Lindsey Perry Accepting for the Team

Haley Coles

Rising Public Health Champion Award

Alida Monteil (Posthumously)

Alida Monteil Indigenous Health & Advocacy Award

Arizona’s Air Pollution Health Crisis

Free In-person Morning Scoop at Alexi’s Grill (3350 North Central Avenue #120, Phoenix AZ)

REGISTER FOR IN-PERSON EVENT OR VIEW YOUTUBE PRESENTATION

In this Morning Scoop, we’ll discuss Phoenix’s ranking as one of the most polluted cities in the U.S. for ozone and particulate pollution and how it disproportionately affects communities of color. Moving to clean energy practices and policies has been seen as a vital way to reduce air pollution and improve lung health in the process.

  • Dr. Reginald Bolding, Founder of Arizona Coalition for Change & Former House Minority Leader
  • JoAnna Strother, Senior Director, American Lung Association
  • Will Humble, MPH, Executive Director, Arizona Public Health Association
  • Aaron Lieberman, Founder and CEO, Buzze