Honorable Robert Bunda

President of the Senate

Twenty-Second State Legislature

Regular Session of 2004

State of Hawaii

Sir:

Your Committee on Labor, to which was referred S.B. No. 214 entitled:

begs leave to report as follows:

The purpose of this measure is to amend the law relating to workforce development.

Your Committee finds that in order to foster the development of a workforce among the Marshallese, Micronesian, and Palauan communities, services must be provided to those individuals to ensure that they are properly assimilated, educated, trained, and prepared for employment within the State.

Accordingly, your Committee has amended this measure by replacing its contents to provide for services to the immigrants from the Freely Associated States—the Republic of the Marshall Islands, the Republic of Palau, and the Federated States of Micronesia, to assist them in being assimilated, educated, trained, and prepared for gainful employment. The measure has also been amended to include the establishment of pilot programs in Waipahu and Kalihi, funded by grants from the Office of Continuing Education at Leeward Community College from the funds received by the State pursuant to the Compact of Free Association Amendments Act of 2003, P.L. 108-188, 11 Stat. 2027.

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. 214, as amended herein, and recommends that it pass Second Reading in the form attached hereto as S.B. No. 214, S.D. 1, and be recommitted to the Committee on Labor, for further consideration.