Honorable Robert Bunda

President of the Senate

Twenty-First State Legislature

Regular Session of 2002

State of Hawaii

Sir:

Your Committee on Education, to which was referred H.B. No. 2166, H.D. 1, entitled:

begs leave to report as follows:

The purpose of this measure is to assist not-for-profit private elementary schools, secondary schools, colleges, and universities that serve the general public by authorizing the State to issue special purpose revenue bonds (SPRBs) for their benefit.

Your Committee received testimony in support of the measure from the Hawaii Association of Independent Schools and Hawaii Catholic Conference. Your Committee received testimony in opposition to the measure from the Attorney General and Hawaii State Teachers Association.

Your Committee finds that SPRBs may be one way for the State to facilitate the public purposes served by private schools in educating 30,000 children in Hawaii and easing the burden on the resources of public schools. With this funding, your Committees intend that private schools maintain and repair aging infrastructure that directly supports the instructional program, through a mandate that would be stipulated in administrative rules of the State and Hawaii Association of Independent Schools, and verified by an inspection regime. It should also be noted that no private school in Hawaii is "pervasively sectarian," a test that a District Court in Michigan found to be a sufficient means of addressing any constitutional concerns about the separation of church and state.

Your Committee has amended the measure by proposing constitutional amendments that would allow:

As affirmed by the record of votes of the members of your Committee on Education that is attached to this report, your Committee is in accord with the intent and purpose of H.B. No. 2166, H.D. 1, as amended herein, and recommends that it pass Second Reading in the form attached hereto as H.B. No. 2166, H.D. 1, S.D. 1, and be referred to the Committee on Ways and Means.