Lawmakers approve bell-to-bell cellphone ban in schools starting in the fall

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Shoreham-Wading River teacher dies two days after suffering medical episode after school

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longisland

News 12 Staff

429LIzoomanotherone_2025-04-29-07-56-52

And so this morning we're talking to assembly members on both sides of the aisle on the state budget and what it means for your family and your community. And joining us now is Republican Ari Brown. Good morning. Thanks, Ari, for joining us. We're trying to break down specifically how this is going to affect Long Island families. Can you get into that and can you get behind any of this budget? Hi, Erin, Rich, thanks for having me. Of course, I'm a lifelong Long Islander, like my backyard neighbor was Sean Hannity when I grew up. Uh, everything comes down to safety and security. You know, government's first obligation obviously is protected citizenry. So the discovery portion of this is extremely important. You know, we've seen wackiness going on throughout our country. We see legislators going to El Salvador to protect criminals. Did they go to Gaza to see how our American citizen hostages are, and that's the issue here. Discovery is first and foremost the masking issue also a priority, father of 7, grandfather of 4. I like the cell phone thing. It's not my biggest issue. I'm in favor of it. I think the governor held out and it seems like she's going to get a lot of what she wants. Uh, but again, safety and security comes first or we have nothing. Ari, being in the minority is never easy, but in this situation you've got a Democratic control in the assembly, the state Senate, and of course the governor. What does it mean for Republicans in this process now as the voting takes place over the next few days? It means everything. If you look at every single chapter amendment, they always come from our debates. The governor listens and the bills end up changing, even though we're not in favor a lot of it. Most of the amendments come from our extensive debates, and it seems like medical aid in dying, I know it's going to be up for debate today. It seems like those on the other side may not necessarily be voting for that today. We'll see how that plays out. All right. Republican Ari Brown, thanks so much for giving us your perspective and joining us this morning. Thanks for having me, Erin Rich. Thanks.

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429STATEBUDGETDEBATE1_2025-04-29-07-07-43

Lawmakers we know are expected to begin voting on the state budget this week. Governor Hochle says that the deal includes affordability initiatives that includes providing free lunch to kids K through 12 and plans to triple the child tax credit, plus startup inflation refund checks. Those would be worth $200 for individuals and $400 per family. This morning we're talking to assembly members on both sides of the aisle on the state budget, what it could mean for your family and your community. And joining us now is Deputy Majority Leader and Democrat Mikhail Solage. Mikhael, thank you so much for joining us early this morning. The good news there's a budget for Long Island families out there. Why is this budget good for them with some of those tax breaks there? And I appreciate the opportunity to talk about the budget. This budget is a direct response to what Long Islanders are feeling every day the rising cost of living. And as a Long Island mom of three, I could see it in the grocery stores or in other facets of my life. And so when we were deliberating this budget, we want to be thoughtful. So we tack. It at many different ends. As you said before, we talked about a middle class tax cut where we're going to make the tax rate for middle class families at the lowest level in 70 years. We have reflation reduction checks which the governor said putting this money back into your pockets. It shouldn't be in government's pockets, it should be in your pockets. And then we also expanded the child tax credit, which is huge because for, as you know, mothers and families of children under 4, they're going to get $1000. Kids between 4 and 16 parents are going to get about $500 back. So that's really a significant amount of money to Long Islanders, not to mention that, you know, we are doing many other initiatives that directly impact. Long Island. When we talk about the MTA, we're really investing into Long Island. We have the Yamak station that we just did the groundbreaking, you know, we're seeing money coming back from Albany to our communities, whether it's from Elmont to Montauk. We're making investments into Long Island families. Assemblywoman, what about the discovery laws? There's been a lot of talk that the governors wanted changes. Many in the legislature have been pushing back against that. Where does it stand right now? Where do you stand on it? Well, we're changing the discovery laws. I think we all agree that dismissals was a miscarriage, miscarriagement of justice, and that we need to make sure that when whether a victim or someone who's accused come before the courts, that they have the opportunity to defend themselves and that the the error should not be on the law. So we did change the discovery laws. We also made sure that we had involuntary commitment. so that many of the folks, the folks going through mental health traumas on the subways or in their communities can get assistance. So we want to be compassionate and also have the full rule of the law in which we did that, you know, there are folks out there who are talking lots of game, but we are actually doing it in Albany, changing laws to reflect what the communities want. Assemblywoman Mikhail Sola, thank you so much for joining us and explaining that to Long Island families this morning. Thank you.

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429coheninterview_2025-04-29-07-49-06

Lawmakers are set to vote on the state budget this week as we've been talking about, and that could bring a whole lot of changes for our schools. Yes, and joining us now to discuss that angle is the former Brentwood School superintendent Michael Cohen. Thanks so much for joining us, and we want to get right to how this budget is going to affect our Long Island schools. Well, I spoke with a highly placed official up in Albany last night to get the latest, uh, information and was told that it's going to be a very good year for Long Island schools. Uh, the, you know, again, there are always winners and losers, but, uh, in general it would be a very good year. Due to two factors, uh, Wall Street had a very good year last year, and that means that the folks got big bonuses, and that means money flows into the you know, into the state coffers through the income tax. And then the other one which was kind of surprising was the uh the legalization of the sale of cannabis and that has brought in far more revenue than uh than they anticipated. So, uh what it amounts to is it'll be a good year for New for Lo Island schools. Well that's so important, particularly for taxpayers. Michael, how about the cell phone ban? Uh, it sounds like this is going to happen as well. How would you implement this on a district-wide basis? You know, everybody is in favor of the cell phone ban, which. It could be a good thing or a bad thing. I, I don't, the devil's always in the details. I can just see some major problems with implementation. You got a generation of hyper helicopter parents who want to be, you know, in touch with their, their children 24/7, uh. How are you, are you gonna put this in codes of conduct? I mean, I could foresee, you put that in the code of conduct and then you could have large scale suspensions, uh, you know, then that creates a new problem. So it's gonna be very interesting to see how they navigate that and, and, and what exceptions they come up with, if any. What I was told was last night that it's going to be a full band. And that that's gonna be very difficult to implement in my eyes. We will see. We will stay tuned. Michael Cohen, thanks so much for joining us and giving us that information for our Long Island schools and everyone involved with it. Yep, thank you. Have a great day, guys.

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News 12 spoke to officials on both sides of the aisle about their thoughts on the budget and what it means for local families.

Assemblymembers debate state budget and community impacts

News 12 spoke to officials on both sides of the aisle about their thoughts on the budget and what it means for local families.

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