Honorable Robert Bunda

President of the Senate

Twenty-Second State Legislature

Regular Session of 2003

State of Hawaii

Sir:

Your Committee on Education, to which was referred S.B. No. 1409 entitled:

begs leave to report as follows:

The purpose of this measure is to empower the Board of Regents of the University of Hawaii to authorize the issuance of revenue bonds for university capital improvement projects.

Testimony in support of this measure was submitted by the Department of Budget and Finance and the University of Hawaii.

Your Committee finds that over the last decade, the Legislature has approved measures providing increased financial flexibility to the university system, beginning with the authority to raise and expend tuition fees and more recently through a constitutional amendment granting the Board of Regents exclusive authority over the internal operations of the university system. Your Committee further finds that based upon this enhanced authority, the university should be provided some flexibility in the management of its funds, particularly where it will be committing its own revenues to pay for university projects.

Your Committee has amended this measure by inserting a provision in the new §  –3 to require the university to seek legislative approval at the next regular session after a university project is authorized to ensure that the project is in the public interest, and by making technical, nonsubstantive amendments for the purposes of clarity and style.

As affirmed by the record of votes of the members of your Committee on Education that is attached to this report, your Committee is in accord with the intent and purpose of S.B. No. 1409, as amended herein, and recommends that it pass Second Reading in the form attached hereto as S.B. No. 1409, S.D. 1, and be referred to the Committee on Ways and Means.