STAND. COM. REP. NO. 2673

 

Honolulu, Hawaii

                  

 

RE:    S.B. No. 2114

       S.D. 1

 

 

 

Honorable Shan S. Tsutsui

President of the Senate

Twenty-Sixth State Legislature

Regular Session of 2012

State of Hawaii

 

Sir:

 

     Your Committee on Ways and Means, to which was referred S.B. No. 2114 entitled:

 

"A BILL FOR AN ACT RELATING TO THE TRANSIENT ACCOMMODATIONS TAX,"

 

begs leave to report as follows:

 

     The purpose and intent of this measure is to provide for the allocation of transient accommodations tax revenues to the Convention Center Enterprise Special Fund on a fiscal year basis, instead of a calendar year basis.

 

     Written comments in support of this measure were submitted by the Hawaii Tourism Authority.

 

     Your Committee finds that the amount of the transient accommodations tax revenue allocated for the Convention Center Enterprise Special Fund is limited to $33,000,000 per calendar year.  A problem arises as a result of the limits on the deposits into the special fund because the limit is applied on a calendar year basis, but expenditures from the fund are made on a fiscal year basis.  In some years, the $33,000,000 limit is achieved in the third month of the fiscal year, October, and no further revenues are deposited into the fund until the new calendar year.  This results in a short-fall in the fund's ability to pay the debt service for the convention center.

 

     Your Committee has amended this measure by:

 

     (1)  Providing that any unexpended and unencumbered moneys, as determined by the Hawaii Tourism Authority to be in excess of any unencumbered reserve remaining in the convention center enterprise special fund at the close of the fiscal year 2011-2012, may be expended by the Authority for repair and maintenance projects of the Hawaii Convention Center; and

 

     (2)  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 Ways and Means that is attached to this report, your Committee is in accord with the intent and purpose of S.B. No. 2114, as amended herein, and recommends that it pass Third Reading in the form attached hereto as S.B. No. 2114, S.D. 1.

 

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

 

 

 

____________________________

DAVID Y. IGE, Chair