Honorable Robert Bunda

President of the Senate

Twenty-First State Legislature

Regular Session of 2002

State of Hawaii

Sir:

Your Committees on Health and Human Services and Education, to which was referred S.B. No. 2143 entitled:

beg leave to report as follows:

The purpose of this measure is to establish a dedicated source of funding for youth programs that operate during non-school hours.

The Office of Youth Services (OYS) and Hawaii Youth Services Network testified in support of the measure. The Department of Budget and Finance testified in opposition to the measure.

Your Committees find that juvenile crime, drug use, and sexual activity peak during non-school hours. Therefore, it is important that children and teenagers have opportunities to engage in constructive social, educational, and recreational activities through structured programs that operate before and after school, on weekends, and during school breaks.

The Department of Human Services' OYS supports youth programs through its funding of Youth Service Centers. This measure reallocates moneys in the Hawaii tobacco settlement special fund and establishes an additional allocation to OYS to fund youth programs during non-school hours.

Your Committees have amended this measure by deleting references to specific percentages appropriated from the Hawaii tobacco settlement special fund to the emergency and budget reserve fund and OYS.

As affirmed by the records of votes of the members of your Committees on Health and Human Services and Education that are attached to this report, your Committees are in accord with the intent and purpose of S.B. No. 2143, as amended herein, and recommend that it pass Second Reading in the form attached hereto as S.B. No. 2143, S.D. 1, and be referred to the Committee on Ways and Means.