Honorable Robert Bunda

President of the Senate

Twenty-Second State Legislature

Regular Session of 2003

State of Hawaii

Sir:

Your Committee on Labor, to which was referred S.B. No. 94 entitled:

begs leave to report as follows:

The purpose of this measure is to grant civil service status to all civil service exempt employees within the Department of Land and Natural Resources.

Testimony in support of this measure was submitted by the Hawaii Government Employees Association and five private citizens.

Testimony opposing passage of this measure was submitted by the Department of Human Resources Development. Comments were provided by the Department of Land and Natural Resources (DLNR), indicating deferral to the position of the Department of Human Resources Development.

Your Committee finds that Act 253, Session Laws of Hawaii, directed departments to evaluate whether positions, exempted from civil service should remain so or be converted to civil service status. To date, the Department of Human Resources Development has submitted no such report. Your Committee believes that although one of the original purposes of exempting certain positions was to facilitate the swift hiring of individuals with highly specialized skills, particularly those involved with projects or programs of a temporary nature, the cause for the exempt status of some positions has since disappeared.

Accordingly, your Committee believes that the time has come for several DLNR positions to be converted from exempt to civil service status. This change will afford many employees the benefit of clear job descriptions and objectives, timely evaluation, and will facilitate objective decision making on the job.

However, your Committee is concerned with the wholesale conversion of all exempt DLNR positions. Therefore, your Committee has amended the measure to specify the conversion of forty-three exempt positions to civil service status.

As affirmed by the record of votes of the members of your Committee on Labor that is attached to this report, your Committee is in accord with the intent and purpose of S.B. No. 94, as amended herein, and recommends that it pass Second Reading in the form attached hereto as S.B. No. 94, S.D. 1, and be referred to the Committee on Ways and Means.