EDITORIAL: State must address overdue utility bill crisis | The Daily Gazette SECTIONS The covid state of emergency might be officially over and winter might be a several months away, but the crisis facing more than a million New Yorkers with regard to keeping the power on in their homes hasn’t subsided. The state needs to make sure that people who could not keep up with their bills during the economic shutdown — including low-income and elderly property owners — get the help they need to get by. Right now, about 1.2 million residential energy customers in New York owe more than $1.5 billion in overdue utility bills — an average of $1,250 per household.