STAND. COM. REP. 190

Honolulu, Hawaii

, 2003

RE: H.B. No. 1215

 

 

 

Honorable Calvin K.Y. Say

Speaker, House of Representatives

Twenty-Second State Legislature

Regular Session of 2003

State of Hawaii

Sir:

Your Committee on Public Safety and Military Affairs, to which was referred H.B. No. 1215 entitled:

"A BILL FOR AN ACT RELATING TO INCARCERATED PERSONS,"

begs leave to report as follows:

The purpose of this bill is to exclude most incarcerated persons in work-related programs of the Department of Public Safety from mandated employee benefits, such as unemployment compensation benefits, workers' compensation, temporary disability insurance, prepaid health care, and minimum wage and hour rights.

This bill exempts persons on work furloughs from the exclusion.

Your Committee finds that inter-departmental differences over the applicability of employee benefit laws to prison inmates may force the closure of the inmate work programs offered by the Department of Public Safety, due to the added costs involved. Your Committee believes that these programs are vital to an inmate's rehabilitation and should not have to face termination. Accordingly, your Committee believes that in order to protect these essentially rehabilitative programs it is necessary to clarify that the inmates are not employees for employee benefit purposes.

 

As affirmed by the record of votes of the members of your Committee on Public Safety and Military Affairs that is attached to this report, your Committee is in accord with the intent and purpose of H.B. No. 1215 and recommends that it pass Second Reading and be referred to the Committee on Labor and Public Employment.

 

Respectfully submitted on behalf of the members of the Committee on Public Safety and Military Affairs,

 

____________________________

KEN ITO, Chair