Honorable Robert Bunda

President of the Senate

Twenty-Second State Legislature

Regular Session of 2004

State of Hawaii

Sir:

Your Committee on Ways and Means, to which was referred S.B. No. 2222, S.D. 1, entitled:

begs leave to report as follows:

The purpose of this measure is to expand eligibility for the Bridge to Hope program to include persons in the Temporary Assistance to Other Needy Families program.

The bill also appropriates funds to the Bridge to Hope program which supports recipients pursuing post-secondary education to achieve economic self-sufficiency.

Your Committee finds that the Bridge to Hope program is a model partnership between the University of Hawaii and the Department of Human Services supporting post-secondary education as a means for welfare recipients to achieve life-long economic self-sufficiency, leaving not only welfare but poverty behind.

Further, your Committee finds that the State's first to work education policy is available to both federally-funded and state-funded Temporary Assistance to Other Needy Families recipients. However, the statutory language establishing the Bridge to Hope program refers only to the federally-funded Temporary Assistance to Other Needy Families single parents. This measure opens the doors to state-funded Temporary Assistance to Other Needy Families recipients so they too may realize their full potential through post-secondary education.

As affirmed by the record of votes of the members of your Committee on Ways and Means that is attached to this report, your Committee is in accord with the intent and purpose of S.B. No. 2222, S.D. 1, and recommends that it pass Third Reading.