Honorable Calvin K.Y. Say

Speaker, House of Representatives

Twenty-Second State Legislature

Regular Session of 2003

State of Hawaii

Sir:

Your Committee on Labor and Public Employment, to which was referred S.B. No. 205, S.D. 3, entitled:

begs leave to report as follows:

The purpose of this bill is to require:

Parents and Children Together and the Hawaii Coalition for Dads testified in support of this measure. The Department of Human Resources Development opposed this bill.

Since 1989, the State has allowed employees up to two hours of paid administrative time-off to attend two parent-teacher conferences for each child per school year, provided that employee's absences do not adversely interfere with work operations or result in additional human resource or overtime costs.

Since 1993, the State has also allowed regular employees to use sick leave toward family leave to care for a seriously ill child or other qualified family member.

From the standpoint of public policy, it would appear that the administrative policies and procedures that are currently being implemented provide employees with effective mechanisms to attend to their family needs. However, your Committee is concerned whether sufficient statutory safeguards exist to protect the employee's ability to use these mechanisms.

Under the current policy, employees are provided two hours of paid leave per child per school year to attend two conferences. This averages to one hour of leave for one conference per academic semester. Much can happen to a child's school performance over an entire semester, and if parents were able to meet with teachers on a quarterly basis, they would be better informed and in a better position to assist in the academic development of their child.

Your Committee believes that there is a need to establish statutorily the employee's ability to receive paid leave for parent-teacher conferences. Since the current practice is authorized by Executive Order rather than by statute, there will always remain the possibility that this benefit will be eliminated at the whim of the Chief Executive.

However, your Committee is mindful that any statutorily-based benefit will have adverse effects on the government's ability to provide high-quality and timely services to the general public. To this end, sufficient safeguards must also be established to ensure that the provision of leave for conferences will continue to be done in a manner that is fair and equitable to both the public-sector employer and employee.

Accordingly, your Committee has amended this bill by:

Your Committee urges both the public sector employers and employees to implement this law in a mutually beneficial manner since it is ultimately the child's best interest that this law intends to support.

As affirmed by the record of votes of the members of your Committee on Labor and Public Employment that is attached to this report, your Committee is in accord with the intent and purpose of S.B. No. 205, S.D. 3, as amended herein, and recommends that it pass Second Reading in the form attached hereto as S.B. No. 205, S.D. 3, H.D. 1, and be referred to the Committee on Finance.