Honorable Robert Bunda

President of the Senate

Twenty-First State Legislature

Regular Session of 2001

State of Hawaii

Sir:

Your Committee on Transportation, Military Affairs and Government Operations, to which was referred S.B. No. 182 entitled:

begs leave to report as follows:

The purpose of this measure is to appropriate funds for the care and maintenance of state veterans' cemeteries in Hawaii, Maui, and Kauai counties.

Your Committee received testimony in favor of this measure from the Office of Veterans' Services and one of its board members individually, the Office of the Mayor of Kauai County, the Oahu Veterans Council, the Big Island Veterans Association, twenty members of the Hawaii Island Veterans Memorial, Inc., the Hawaii County Veterans' Cemetery Advisory Committee, and two proud veterans.

Your Committee finds that those who served our country bravely in the armed forces deserve to be honored and respected, both during their lifetimes and after. Burial in a state veterans cemetery is one of the honors reserved for those who served the United States in peacetime or wartime.

Your Committee finds that our state veterans cemeteries have fallen into disrepair, however, due to lack of funds for maintenance. Your Committee agrees with the purpose of this measure, which is to appropriate funds specifically for repair and maintenance of our state veterans' cemeteries.

Based on testimony provided by the Office of Veterans' Services, your Committee amended this measure to remove the Department of Defense as the expending agency for these appropriations. Instead, the county agencies in charge of maintenance of the Hawaii, Maui, and Kauai county veterans cemeteries shall be responsible for expending the funds appropriated by this measure.

As affirmed by the record of votes of the members of your Committee on Transportation, Military Affairs and Government Operations that is attached to this report, your Committee is in accord with the intent and purpose of S.B. No. 182, as amended herein, and recommends that it pass Second Reading in the form attached hereto as S.B. No. 182, S.D. 1, and be referred to the Committee on Ways and Means.