STAND. COM. REP. NO. 334

 

Honolulu, Hawaii

                  

 

RE:    S.B. No. 1385

       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 Education and Water, Land, and Housing, to which was referred S.B. No. 1385 entitled:

 

"A BILL FOR AN ACT RELATING TO PUBLIC SCHOOL LANDS,"

 

beg leave to report as follows:

 

     The purpose and intent of this measure is to establish the Public School Lands Trust in order to generate income to improve public school facilities and infrastructure to meet the challenges of the twenty-first century and beyond.

 

     Your Committees received testimony in support of this measure from the Land Use Research Foundation of Hawaii and two individuals.  Your Committees received testimony in opposition to this measure from the Department of Budget and Finance, the Office of Hawaiian Affairs, and the Office of the Mayor of the City and County of Honolulu.  Your Committees received comments on this measure from the Department of Education and the Department of Land and Natural Resources.

 

     Your Committees find that the considerable amount of underutilized public school lands can be used as a resource to bring in and leverage funds to improve public school facilities and build infrastruture to bring classes up to twenty-first century standards.  Your Committees further find that this measure provides the State with an innovative method, which has been successful in other states, of using its assets to generate income to benefit Hawaii's public schools.

 

     Your Committees have amended this measure by inserting:

 

     (1)  Language to require that any sale of land from the Public School Lands Trust be approved by no less than a two-thirds majority of members in each house of the Legislature; and

 

     (2)  An effective date of July 1, 2050, to allow for further discussion of this measure.

 

     As affirmed by the records of votes of the members of your Committees on Education and Water, Land, and Housing that are attached to this report, your Committees are in accord with the intent and purpose of S.B. No. 1385, as amended herein, and recommend that it pass Second Reading in the form attached hereto as S.B. No. 1385, S.D. 1, and be referred to the Committee on Ways and Means.

 

Respectfully submitted on behalf of the members of the Committees on Education and Water, Land, and Housing,

 

____________________________

DONOVAN M. DELA CRUZ, Chair

 

____________________________

JILL TOKUDA, Chair