STAND. COM. REP. NO. 711

Honolulu, Hawaii

, 2005

RE: S.B. No. 1748

S.D. 1

 

 

Honorable Robert Bunda

President of the Senate

Twenty-Third State Legislature

Regular Session of 2005

State of Hawaii

Sir:

Your Committee on Ways and Means, to which was referred S.B. No. 1748 entitled:

"A BILL FOR AN ACT RELATING TO STATE FUNDS,"

begs leave to report as follows:

The purpose of this measure is to prohibit the Director of Finance from reducing any budget estimate submitted by a department except if the prohibition results in a budget shortfall.

The bill also requires the Director of Finance to predicate any budget allotment reduction on the actual state tax revenues or other revenue source collected or received, instead of basing the reduction on estimates or projections.

This bill identifies and remedies two areas of the state budgetary law to assist and expedite the release and eventual use of legislative appropriations. Your Committee is also concerned about another area of the state budgetary law regarding grants under chapter 42F, Hawaii Revised Statutes.

Your Committee finds that grant recipients provide a multitude of services to the public. Without these services, the State would be hard pressed to develop the physical and community infrastructure and the public confidence necessary to effectively and efficiently provide these services. But just as the State is dependent on grant recipients, grant recipients depend on the State for funding of their programs and services. A problem arises when the Governor does not decide definitively whether to release or allocate the funds for a grant. In that instance, recipients are caught in a dilemma of whether to seek other financing for their programs and services, or wait until the Governor decides on the fate of their grant.

To assist grant recipients and to provide the Governor with a process that focuses on unreleased grants, your Committee has amended the bill to require the Governor to provide regular notice to recipients of unreleased grants on the status of their grants. Your Committee finds that this amendment will provide recipients with useful information to ultimately assist them in determining their financing source.

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 is in accord with the intent and purpose of S.B. No. 1748, as amended herein, and recommends that it pass Second Reading in the form attached hereto as S.B. No. 1748, S.D. 1, and be placed on the calendar for Third Reading.

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

____________________________

BRIAN T. TANIGUCHI, Chair