The Democratic majorities of the Senate and Assembly yesterday proposed increases in spending on schools and other services beyond Gov. Kathy Hochul’s executive budget, while preserving versions of Hochul’s middle class tax breaks and increasing taxes on the wealthiest New Yorkers and corporations.

The Senate and Assembly will also negotiate several of Hochul’s policy proposals within the $252 billion budget plan she made in January, including one to ban cellphones in classrooms from "bell to bell." Michael Gormley reports in NEWSDAY that in aid to schools, Hochul proposes an $825 million or 2.4% increase in her budget. The Assembly proposes $2.7 billion more than current funding and the Senate proposes a more than $1 billion increase over current spending on schools of more than $34 billion.

The independent Budget Commission said the Senate and Assembly proposals would increase state operating funds by 13.7%-, or four-times inflation over the current year’s spending, in a perilous economic period. "New Yorkers don’t need unaffordable spending or another round of new tax increases," the commission’s Andrew S. Rein said in a written statement. "They need New York to live within its means."

The Democratic leaders of the Senate and Assembly will now negotiate behind closed doors to seek a budget deal that is due by the beginning of the fiscal year on April 1.

None of the proposals cut spending in anticipation of what state officials expect will be deep slashes in federal aid under President Donald Trump and the Republican-controlled Congress. That may require later amendments to the budget, state officials said yesterday.

NYS Comptroller Thomas DiNapoli warned in a February analysis that federal aid cuts "may have a large impact on the state’s finances and on New Yorkers’ quality of life."

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A Suffolk County child has tested positive for measles, the third infection statewide this year, New York health officials said yesterday, as they warned people at a New Hyde Park hospital while the child underwent treatment there of "potential exposure" to the highly contagious disease. Officials would not say whether the child is still hospitalized at Cohen Children's Medical Center, where they resided in Suffolk County or how they may have contracted measles. Lisa L. Colangelo and Nicholas Grasso report in NEWSDAY that anyone who was at the hospital's pediatric emergency department on March 3 or 4, or "visited an inpatient child on the Medicine 3 unit" between March 3 and 6 could have been exposed, according to the New York State Health Department.

"These times reflect the potential exposure period when the infected individual was in the identified areas," the agency said in news release. "As this investigation is ongoing, potential other exposures are also being assessed."

The state's first two measles cases this year have been in New York City.

The child was unvaccinated but did not attend daycare or school while infectious, according to the Suffolk County Department of Health.

State health officials said the child had recently traveled "outside of the U.S."

Officials declined to give the age of the infected child, other than to say they were under 5. Since children generally receive their first measles vaccination between the age of 12 and 15 months, babies are usually unvaccinated for their first year of life.

This new Suffolk case has not been linked to measles outbreaks elsewhere in the United States, the health department said.

Cohen Children’s Medical Center is working with health officials "under established exposure protocols to ensure no further cases arise from this incident," according to a hospital statement emailed to Newsday on Tuesday.

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Backers of New York Gov. Kathy Hochul’s proposed “bell-to-bell” ban on the use of smartphones in schools are calling out Democrats in the state Senate for pushing to “water down” the proposal. Carl Campanile and Vaughn Golden report in THE NY POST that Hochul’s plan would forbid students from using smartphones during the entire school day, but the State Senate’s proposed budget resolution would only ban cell phone usage during classroom or “instructional time.” The Senate’s proposal would leave it to school districts to determine whether or not they want to outlaw cell phone usage outside the classroom or during non-instructional periods. Many schools in the state already have a policy forbidding cell phone use during class time only, according to those who support the more extensive all day school ban. Governor Hochul said yesterday she is “committed to fighting for a bell-to-bell” smartphone ban. “This is what the experts say, this is what the parents want, this is what the teachers want,” Hochul said during a press event in Albany.

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As lawyers for the Town of Southampton argued in court Monday for a pause in work on the Shinnecock Indian Nation’s Sunrise Highway gas station, the tribe filed a separate motion to dismiss the case saying the state court lacked authority to rule. Mark Harrington reports in NEWSDAY that both sides were in state Supreme Court in Riverhead Monday, as Judge Maureen Liccione puzzled over the intricacies of U.S. Indian law and appeared resigned to the fact that her rulings would be quickly appealed. Southampton Town is seeking a preliminary injunction to stop work on the gas station. The Shinnecock Nation has been working on the 20-bay gas station/travel plaza since last year on its 80-acre Westwoods property in Hampton Bays adjacent north to Route 27 westbound. Acres of land have been cleared, a long roadway has already been paved and a steel building frame erected. Some residents have railed against the project, which abuts million-dollar homes more attuned to the property as forest. "I’m a city guy and this is my nirvana," said Charles Forchelli, an attorney whose home abuts the newly cleared plaza. "I was surrounded by woods." The tribe says building on the parcel is its sovereign right and essential to economic improvement for a nation where most live under the poverty level. Chairwoman Lisa Goree said in affidavits that the plaza will bring the nation some $900,000 a year by 2030.

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A divided crowd packed East Hampton Town Hall last Thursday to address legislation to curb home sizes in the town as an effort to keep overdevelopment in check. Jack Motz reports on 27east.com that the measure proposes a reduction to the town’s formula for maximum house sizes based on lot acreage, and it has garnered both significant support and opposition from the community. If enacted, the proposal would reduce the maximum gross floor area of a single-family home from 10 percent of lot area plus 1,600 square feet — codified in a 2016 reduction — to 7 percent of lot area plus 1,500 square feet. The March 6th meeting was “standing room only in Town Hall,” as supporters and opponents of the measure packed inside, with all chairs taken, a line of people standing in the back and meeting attendees sitting on the floor. The divisiveness of the proposal extended to the East Hampton Town Planning Board, which was split at a meeting on February 26: three members supported it, three opposed it and one ventured that it didn’t go far enough. The East Hampton Town Board will likely hold a post-hearing discussion as its next step.

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The emergency dredging project intended to ensure safe navigation for fishermen undertaken by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers at Montauk Inlet is now complete, the Town of East Hampton recently announced. Jack Motz reports on 27east.com that prior to the dredging, surveys conducted by the Army Corps found the depth “as low as 3 feet in some areas.” The project deepened the main navigational passage to 12 feet, the town said. Murden, the dredge assigned to the project, focused on two areas in Montauk: the main channel and the boat basin. Due to shoaling, the main channel had been reduced to three feet in some places. The boat basin, located near Star Island, saw pre-dredging depths between 7.8 and 10 feet. Both areas have been deepened, “allowing for improved navigation” and “reducing future maintenance needs.” East Hampton Town intends to work with the Army Corps on a planned dredging project slated for the fall, which will bring the inlet to 17 feet deep. In a press release, the Town of East Hampton expressed its “sincere appreciation” for the efforts of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers for its “leadership in this emergency dredging effort.”

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The section of the pine barrens that burned in the Westhampton brush fire on Saturday is expected to recover with new plant life and wildlife, experts said. The pine barrens are a "fire dependent ecosystem," according to ecologists, meaning that burns are necessary to clear dead vegetation and reduce density so that new growth can take place. Suffolk County police said a family attempting to cook s’mores Saturday morning in Manorville is believed to have sparked four separate fires — in Center Moriches, East Moriches, Eastport and the largest fire that burned more than 420 acres of the pine barrens in the Westhampton area. John Asbury reports in NEWSDAY that the region has seen fires over the past century, but much of the section of the pine barrens impacted on Saturday has not burned in a significant way since 1995, experts said. That section includes dwarf pitch pines, which only open their cones during a fire so their seeds can disperse, said Pace University ecologist Matthew Aiello-Lammens. "We should expect to see some vibrant regeneration of baby pitch pines in the next year and a half," Aiello-Lammens said. "This is probably good for the ecosystem and better for the biodiversity of the region." The Crescent Bow fire of 2012 burned 1,100 acres, farther north in the Manorville-Ridge area, after starting on the grounds of Brookhaven National Laboratory. That marked the largest fire on Long Island since the nearly 3,200-acre Sunrise Fire burned across Sunrise Highway in 1995. Suffolk County officials said yesterday that they did not yet have an estimated cost for the 2025 Westhampton Pines Fire response.