Honorable Robert Bunda

President of the Senate

Twenty-First State Legislature

Regular Session of 2002

State of Hawaii

Sir:

Your Committee on Health and Human Services, to which was referred S.B. No. 2568 entitled:

begs leave to report as follows:

The purpose of this measure is to appropriate $60,000 to create a commission on language access. It also appropriates an unspecified amount for the Department of Health and the Department of Human Services to develop and implement a system by which limited English speaking people can access services, activities, and programs within each department.

Testimony in support of this measure was submitted by the Department of Second Language Studies, University of Hawaii at Manoa, Hawaii Civil Rights Commission, Catholic Charities, Na Loio-Immigrant Rights and Public Interest Legal Center, and the Inter-Agency Council for Immigrant Services.

Your Committee finds that this measure is a well conceived plan for providing essential services for immigrants with limited English proficiency through the use of translation, interpretation, and informational literature in native languages. Your Committee further finds that this measure provides for the collaboration among experts and service providers essential for a comprehensive and long-term language access plan. This measure offers an excellent opportunity to rectify the lack of access to services currently experienced by immigrants and further assist service providers in fulfilling their occupational and legal responsibilities. It generally provides an exemplary statewide program that will insure ongoing necessary services for the residents of Hawaii.

Your Committee has amended this measure by providing that the commission will dissolve at the end of the 2004 regular session and by making technical, nonsubstantive changes.

As affirmed by the record of votes of the members of your Committee on Health and Human Services that is attached to this report, your Committee is in accord with the intent and purpose of S.B. No. 2568, as amended herein, and recommends that it pass Second Reading in the form attached hereto as S.B. No. 2568, S.D. 1, and be referred to the Committee on Ways and Means.