Honorable Robert Bunda

President of the Senate

Twenty-First State Legislature

Regular Session of 2002

State of Hawaii

Sir:

Your Committee on Water, Land, Energy and Environment, to which was referred S.B. No. 2805 entitled:

begs leave to report as follows:

The purpose of this measure is to delete the requirement that all contributions, moneys, and funding received by any soil and water conservation district be deposited into the general fund.

Testimony in support of this measure was received from the Department of Land and Natural Resources.

Your Committee finds that Chapter 180, Hawaii Revised Statutes, authorizes the Department to govern the operations of Hawaii's soil and water conservation districts, which are cooperatives that assist in setting up soil conservation programs.

Your Committee has heard that approximately eighty per cent of the districts' funding is from non-general fund sources. Currently, they receive substantial federal, state, and county grants that are already supervised by the granting agency and are restricted to carrying out specific programs. Requiring moneys from the grants to be placed in the general fund, subject to another level of bureaucracy, will inhibit the districts' ability to do their work in a timely fashion.

Your Committee is supportive of this measure as a means of streamlining government.

As affirmed by the record of votes of the members of your Committee on Water, Land, Energy and Environment that is attached to this report, your Committee is in accord with the intent and purpose of S.B. No. 2805 and recommends that it pass Second Reading and be referred to the Committee on Ways and Means.