The New York State Legislature yesterday authorized another $1.8 billion to keep state government running through tomorrow as patience among legislators frayed over the late state budget. Michael Gormley reports in NEWSDAY that the emergency spending bill includes pay for Gov. Kathy Hochul and her staff, but under state law, the pay for legislators is suspended when a budget isn’t in place by the April 1 start of the fiscal year. Now, the late budget threatens lawmakers’ two-week break, which is scheduled to begin this coming Thursday. "We need to do another extender and I’m not sure there is any change from last week," said Senate Finance Committee Chairwoman Liz Krueger (D-Manhattan). This year’s third emergency spending bill extends spending for salaries for the executive and legislative staff employees, veterans services and Medicaid spending to hospitals.Hochul said last week she will delay a budget deal as long as she must to get an agreement that includes her policy priorities.In past years, the Legislature has returned to Albany during the Passover-Easter break for a budget deal or to pass extenders.John Kaehny of the Reinvent Albany government watchdog group said protracted late budgets not only hurt fiscal planning by state and the local governments and school districts that depend on state aid, but impinges on the regular legislation session, scheduled to end June 12.A significant issue being debated is how much evidence a prosecutor must provide to a defense attorney in a criminal case before a defendant decides whether to take a plea bargain or fight the charges in court. Governor Hochul has sought to require prosecutors to provide only substantial evidence, so that cases won’t be dismissed over inconsequential evidence or other "technicalities."Legislative leaders, however, are fighting over what evidence would be considered inconsequential. Legislators want to avoid practices in past years when some prosecutors withheld important evidence until trial.****Riverhead Supervisor Tim Hubbard has excluded the press and the public from certain meetings at Town Hall because, he said, their presence deters people from speaking candidly and hinders discussion. Alek Lewis reports on Riverheadlocal.com that Supervisor Hubbard has barred the public and press from attending quarterly civic roundtable meetings, where he fields questions and concerns from local civic leaders in the third floor conference room at town hall. Civic roundtable meetings were open to the public during Walter and Jens-Smith administrations; they were canceled during the administration of Hubbard’s predecessor, Yvette Aguiar. Reinstating the meetings was one of several initiatives Hubbard announced during his inaugural address to improve communication between Riverhead residents and their local government. The civic roundtables are “a meeting for me and they’re a meeting for the civic people,” the supervisor said in an interview last week. “And if we have the press there we may not get everything out of the people that they want to say if the press wasn’t there.” Hubbard points out he has scheduled monthly work session discussions for board members to give reports on their committees — a promise he made in his inaugural address. He also said he would “encourage department heads to place more items for open discussion on the work session agenda.”****Both of the candidates nominated by the Southampton Town Democratic Party to run for council seats on the Southampton Town Board officially declined their nominations yesterday and will be replaced on the party ticket by town Planning Board member Tom Neely. “As well as John Leonard, Willa Bernstein has also declined the nomination to run for a seat on the Town Council, and so we will only be running one candidate for that position,” Democratic Committee Chairman Gordon Herr wrote in an...

The Southampton Town Trustees announced they have reached a settlement agreement with oceanfront homeowners.