STAND. COM. REP. NO. 1046

 

Honolulu, Hawaii

                  

 

RE:    S.R. No. 90

       S.D. 1

 

 

 

Honorable Shan S. Tsutsui

President of the Senate

Twenty-Sixth State Legislature

Regular Session of 2011

State of Hawaii

 

Sir:

 

     Your Committees on Human Services and Ways and Means, to which was referred S.R. No. 90 entitled:

 

"SENATE RESOLUTION SUPPORTING THE COMMUNITY SERVICES BLOCK GRANT PROGRAM AND STRONGLY OPPOSING BUDGET CUTS PROPOSED BY THE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES AND MEMBERS OF THE UNITED STATES CONGRESS,"

 

beg leave to report as follows:

 

     The purpose and intent of this measure is to support the Community Services Block Grant program in Hawaii and oppose budget cuts to the program.

 

     Your Committees received testimony in support of this measure from the Department of Labor and Industrial Relations Office of Community Services; Honolulu Community Action Program, Inc.; Hawaii County Economic Opportunity Council; Maui Economic Opportunity, Inc.; Kauai Economic Opportunity, Incorporated; and Catholic Charities Hawaii.

 

     Your Committees find that the Community Services Block Grant program is administered by the states with the purpose of providing core funding to local agencies to reduce poverty, revitalize low-income communities, and empower low-income families to become self-sufficient.  Your Committees further find that the Community Services Block Grant network consists of over one thousand agencies that create, coordinate, and deliver programs and services to low-income Americans.  Through the Community Services Block Grant program, local agencies in Hawaii are able to tailor poverty-reduction programs to the unique needs of the State.

 

     Your Committees additionally find that the President of the United States and members of the United States Congress have proposed to cut $350,000,000 from the Community Services Block Grant program.  That equates to a fifty percent funding reduction which will affect a wide variety of programs, including community services, early childhood services, business development, services to the elderly and people with disabilities, employment training, emergency utility assistance, and food assistance.  Your Committees also find that the budget cuts to the Community Services Block Grant program will place the most vulnerable members of the community at greater risk.

 

     Your Committees have amended this measure by making technical, nonsubstantive amendments for the purposes of clarity and consistency.

 

     As affirmed by the records of votes of the members of your Committees on Human Services and Ways and Means that are attached to this report, your Committees concur with the intent and purpose of S.R. No. 90, as amended herein, and recommend its adoption in the form attached hereto as S.R. No. 90, S.D. 1.

 

Respectfully submitted on behalf of the members of the Committees on Human Services and Ways and Means,

 

____________________________

DAVID Y. IGE, Chair

 

____________________________

SUZANNE CHUN OAKLAND, Chair