STAND. COM. REP. NO. 2850

Honolulu, Hawaii

RE: S.B. No. 2273

S.D. 2

 

 

Honorable Robert Bunda

President of the Senate

Twenty-Third State Legislature

Regular Session of 2006

State of Hawaii

Sir:

Your Committee on Ways and Means, to which was referred S.B. No. 2273, S.D. 1, entitled:

"A BILL FOR AN ACT RELATING TO THE EMPLOYEES' RETIREMENT SYSTEM,"

begs leave to report as follows:

The purpose of this measure is to make various amendments to the employees' retirement system.

The amendments relate to definitions, credited service, contributions, calculation of nontax-qualified benefits, beneficiary designations, accidental and ordinary death benefits, investment vehicles, active duty, returns to service, and class conversions.

Your Committee finds that the changes in this administration measure will synchronize the statutes with the operating practices of the Employees' Retirement System, address Internal Revenue Service and other federal requirements, and make housekeeping changes.

Your Committee has amended this measure, upon the advice of the Employees' Retirement System, to make additional changes, as follows:

(1) Allowing former nonvested contributory plan members whose accumulated contributions are more than $1,000 to file an application to withdraw those funds upon their return to service; and

(2) Allowing noncontributory plan members hired or returning to service from March 1, 2006, through June 30, 2006, to have sixty days to make an election to join the hybrid plan.

Your Committee has also made technical nonsubstantive amendments for the purposes of clarity, style, and consistency, and to conform underlying statutory text to the printed version of the Hawaii Revised Statutes.

As affirmed by the record of votes of the members of your Committee on Ways and Means that is attached to this report, your Committee is in accord with the intent and purpose of S.B. No. 2273, S.D. 1, as amended herein, and recommends that it pass Third Reading in the form attached hereto as S.B. No. 2273, S.D. 2.

Respectfully submitted on behalf of the members of the Committee on Ways and Means,

____________________________

BRIAN T. TANIGUCHI, Chair