STAND. COM. REP. NO.1666

Honolulu, Hawaii

, 2001

RE: S.R. No. 76

S.D. 1

 

 

Honorable Robert Bunda

President of the Senate

Twenty-First State Legislature

Regular Session of 2001

State of Hawaii

Sir:

Your Committee on Ways and Means, to which was referred S.R. No. 76 entitled:

"SENATE RESOLUTION REQUESTING THE LEGISLATIVE REFERENCE BUREAU TO UPDATE ITS SURVEY OF FEDERALLY MANDATED STATE PROGRAMS,"

begs leave to report as follows:

The purpose of this measure is to request the Legislative Reference Bureau to update its survey of federally mandated state programs.

Your Committee received favorable testimony from a concerned citizen.

Your Committee finds that in 1990 alone, the federal government imposed at least twenty additional mandates on the states at an aggregate cost of more than $15,000,000,000 for a variety of issues including smog and acid rain reduction and expanding state Medicaid coverage. These mandates are almost always costly to the states and inappropriately intrude upon or preempt the rights and powers of state government.

To maximize the use of state funds and to better predict the cost of federal mandates upon the State, as well as to enhance state budgetary planning and procedures, your Committee finds that the current federal-state partnership arrangement for the administration of federally mandated programs should be reexamined. This Resolution requests the Legislative Reference Bureau to update its earlier documentation of the extent to which the State is presently burdened.

Your Committee has amended the Resolution by specifying that the Legislative Reference Bureau is to review the "state and federal" funds appropriated or allocated to implement federally mandated programs.

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 concurs with the intent and purpose of S.R. No. 76, as amended herein, and recommends its adoption in the form attached hereto as S.R. No. 76, S.D. 1.

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

____________________________

BRIAN T. TANIGUCHI, Chair