Honorable Robert Bunda

President of the Senate

Twenty-First State Legislature

Regular Session of 2002

State of Hawaii

Sir:

Your Committee on Ways and Means, to which was referred S.B. No. 2038, S.D. 1, entitled:

begs leave to report as follows:

The purpose of this measure is to designate the Auditor as an authorized representative of the Department of Education and the Department of Health in relation to education programs.

Specifically, the Auditor is made the authorized representative of the Department of Education to have access to student education records in connection with the audit of federally supported education programs. The Auditor also is made a health oversight agency under federal and state law to conduct oversight of the Department of Health to evaluate the effectiveness of the Department of Health in providing services that relate to educational programs. The bill also requires the Auditor to keep the information it collects confidential, and to destroy personally identifiable data when no longer needed.

Your Committee finds that the Office of the Auditor has been thwarted in its efforts, in the Felix consent decree context, to evaluate the effectiveness of state education programs. Both the Department of Education and Department of Health have cited federal laws relating to student privacy in keeping that data confidential. This Act will give the Auditor the authority needed to access these records, while still keeping them confidential, so that it can carry out its mission.

Your Committee has amended this bill by making technical, nonsubstantive amendments for the purpose of clarity.

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. 2038, S.D. 1, as amended herein, and recommends that it pass Third Reading in the form attached hereto as S.B. No. 2038, S.D. 2.