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."***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.***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...

Suffolk County child tests positive for measles