Honorable Robert Bunda

President of the Senate

Twenty-First State Legislature

Regular Session of 2002

State of Hawaii

Sir:

Your Committees on Education and Judiciary, to which was referred H.B. No. 2848, H.D. 1, entitled:

beg leave to report as follows:

The purpose of this measure is to propose constitutional amendments to authorize the State to issue special purpose revenue bonds to assist not-for-profit private elementary schools, secondary schools, colleges, and universities.

Your Committees received testimony in support of the measure from the Hawaii Association of Independent Schools, as well as oral support from the Hawaii Business Roundtable. Your Committees received testimony in opposition to the measure from the Attorney General and Hawaii State Teachers Association.

Your Committees find that special purpose revenue bonds 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 this measure by changing the effective date to July 1, 2050.

As affirmed by the records of votes of the members of your Committees on Education and Judiciary that are attached to this report, your Committees are in accord with the intent and purpose of H.B. No. 2848, H.D. 1, as amended herein, and recommend that it pass Second Reading in the form attached hereto as H.B. No. 2848, H.D. 1, S.D. 1, and be referred to the Committee on Ways and Means.