STAND. COM. REP. NO.922
Honolulu, Hawaii
, 2001
RE: S.B. No. 1029
S.D. 2
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.B. No. 1029, S.D. 1, entitled:
"A BILL FOR AN ACT RELATING TO TOURISM,"
begs leave to report as follows:
The purpose of this measure is to require the Hawaii tourism authority to manage the Hawaii convention center.
Generally, the bill also establishes the convention center enterprise special fund and increases the number of members on the Hawaii tourism authority board of directors of the Hawaii tourism authority.
Your Committee finds that with the "sunset" of the Convention Center Authority in June of 2000, another agency must be designated to manage the Hawaii convention center. This bill proposes that the Hawaii tourism authority manage the convention center. Your Committee, however, is concerned with problems at the Hawaii tourism authority reported by your Committee on Tourism and Intergovernmental Affairs. It appears the Hawaii tourism authority is unable to account for the expenditure of certain funds, as well as adequately explain the basis for awarding certain contracts, and how those contracts met the needs of tourism marketing.
Despite these problems, your Committee concurs with your Committee on Tourism and Intergovernmental Affairs that the Hawaii tourism authority is still the agency best suited to manage the convention center subject to certain restrictions. Your Committee generally supports the restrictions, as well as other amendments proposed by your Committee on Tourism and Intergovernmental Affairs to:
(1) Increase the membership of the Hawaii tourism authority's board to include members from the general public and members with specialized knowledge;
(2) Add legislative committee chairs as ex officio voting members;
(3) Limit the terms of board members, require eight voting members to establish a quorum, and require new appointments to reflect the changes in member requirements;
(4) Require legislative approval for any Hawaii tourism authority contract over $50,000; and
(5) Require legislative approval for tourism special fund expenditures over $60,000,000 annually, and restrict administrative expenses to two per cent.
After due consideration, your Committee has amended the bill as follows:
(1) Adding the chairperson of the Board of Land and Natural Resources, or a designated representative as an ex officio non-voting member of the board;
(2) Changing the proposed legislative committee chairs that sit on the board to non-voting members;
(3) Decreasing the amount of a contract that triggers legislative approval to $25,000 and changing that approval instead to notice to the speaker of the house of representatives and the president of the senate;
(4) Deleting legislative approval for Hawaii tourism authority expenditures that exceed $60,000,000;
(5) Deleting references to the transient accommodations tax increase;
(6) Dedicating $1,000,000 of the transient accommodations tax revenues to the state parks special fund;
(7) Dedicating $60,000,000 of the transient accommodations tax revenues to the tourism special fund;
(8) Removing the appropriation section -- section 12 of the bill; and
(9) Making technical amendments that have no substantive effect.
Finally, it is the intent of your Committee that this bill complement S.B. No. 1169, S.D. 1, by providing the statutory authority to fund the state parks fund with $1,000,000 from the transient accommodations tax. S.B. No. 1169, S.D. 1, represents the funding mechanism that appropriate funds out of the state parks special fund to operate and maintain the system.
Your Committee has crafted both measures to improve the state parks system for the benefit of, and with assistance from tourists, through the transient accommodations tax. See S.B. No. 1169, S.D. 1, for further discussion.
Your Committee received favorable testimony on this measure from the Department of Land and Natural Resources and the Waikiki Improvement Association. Opposition to the bill, primarily against increasing the transient accommodations tax was received from the Office of the Mayor of Maui, the Maui Hotel Association, the Visitor Aloha Society of Hawaii, Sheraton Hotels, the Hawaii Leeward Planning Conference, the Hawaii Hotel Association, the Hawaii Restaurant Association, Hawaii Resort Developers Conference and Diamond Resort Hawaii. Mixed support was received from the Hawaii Tourism Authority, the Department of Business, Economic Development, and Tourism, the Department of Taxation, the Sierra Club, Hawaii's Thousand Friends, and the Trust for Public Land. Your Committee also received comments from the Office of the Attorney General and the Tax Foundation of Hawaii.
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. 1029, S.D. 1, as amended herein, and recommends that it pass Third Reading in the form attached hereto as S.B. No. 1029, S.D. 2.
Respectfully submitted on behalf of the members of the Committee on Ways and Means,
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____________________________ BRIAN T. TANIGUCHI, Chair |
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