STAND. COM. REP. NO. 230

 

Honolulu, Hawaii

                  

 

RE:    S.B. No. 308

       S.D. 1

 

 

 

Honorable Donna Mercado Kim

President of the Senate

Twenty-Seventh State Legislature

Regular Session of 2013

State of Hawaii

 

Madam:

 

     Your Committee on Human Services, to which was referred S.B. No. 308 entitled:

 

"A BILL FOR AN ACT MAKING A GRANT FOR THE ESTABLISHMENT AND OPERATION OF A COMPREHENSIVE SERVICE CENTER,"

 

begs leave to report as follows:

 

     The purpose and intent of this measure is to appropriate monies for a grant to establish and operate a comprehensive service center for the deaf, hard of hearing, and deaf-blind.

 

     Your Committee received testimony in support of this measure from the Department of Human Services, Disability and Communication Access Board, Deaf and Hard of Hearing Advisory Board, Deaf Ala Moana Food Group, and twenty individuals.  Your Committee received comments on this measure from the Department of the Attorney General.

 

     Your Committee finds that a center providing comprehensive services for deaf, hard of hearing, and deaf-blind individuals in Hawaii has been the dream of the deaf community in Hawaii since 1972.  The creation of a comprehensive service center is intended to promote individual growth, social awareness, productivity, and equality by empowering deaf, hard of hearing, and deaf-blind persons to be full participants in Hawaii's overall community.  Your Committee further finds that the Department of Human Services Division of Vocational Rehabilitation is in the process of establishing a comprehensive service center for clients they serve.  Members of the deaf, hard of hearing, and deaf-blind community who are not clients of Vocational Rehabilitation will not be able to participate in center services.  This measure will allow the comprehensive service center to serve the entire community of deaf, hard of hearing, and deaf-blind people so that they may all benefit from the center.

 

     Your Committee has amended this measure by:

 

     (1)  Identifying in greater detail the individuals who will benefit from a comprehensive service center;

 

     (2)  Changing the appropriation type from 42F grants to general fund appropriations;

 

     (3)  Inserting an appropriation amount of $300,000 to the Department of Human Services to establish the comprehensive service center;

 

     (4)  Inserting an appropriation amount of $300,000 to the Department of Human Services to operate the comprehensive center; and

 

     (5)  Making technical, nonsubstantive amendments for the purposes of clarity and consistency.

 

     As affirmed by the record of votes of the members of your Committee on Human Services that is attached to this report, your Committee is in accord with the intent and purpose of S.B. No. 308, as amended herein, and recommends that it pass Second Reading in the form attached hereto as S.B. No. 308, S.D. 1, and be referred to the Committee on Ways and Means.

 

Respectfully submitted on behalf of the members of the Committee on Human Services,

 

 

 

____________________________

SUZANNE CHUN OAKLAND, Chair