Honorable Robert Bunda

President of the Senate

Twenty-Second State Legislature

Regular Session of 2004

State of Hawaii

Sir:

Your Committee on Commerce, Consumer Protection and Housing, to which was referred S.B. No. 2881 entitled:

begs leave to report as follows:

The purpose of this measure is to authorize the Department of Commerce and Consumer Affairs (DCCA) to administratively adjust all of the fees and nontax revenues administered by the Department to align revenue collections with expenditures.

The DCCA, Department of Business, Economic Development, and Tourism, Retail Merchants of Hawaii, and The Chamber of Commerce of Hawaii testified in support of the measure.

Your Committee finds that the Public Meetings and Records Law authorizes DCCA to administratively adjust some, but not all, of its fees and nontax revenues in order to maintain a reasonable relationship between revenues generated and the cost or value of services rendered by the department. This inconsistency in the law has hampered the department's ability to effect overall fee adjustments and to expeditiously adjust fees to comply with revised reserve level policy requirements.

This measure extends the authority to adjust fees and nontax revenues to all fees and nontax revenues administered by DCCA. Your Committee finds that this measure will enable the department to respond in a timely fashion to changing economic conditions and consumer demands and to keep revenue collections relatively aligned with expenditures. Existing safeguards in the form of a cap on the amount of the adjustment and approval by the Governor prevent abuse of this authority.

Your Committee has amended this measure to require DCCA to report annually to the Legislature on fee adjustments made during the preceding fiscal year.

As affirmed by the record of votes of the members of your Committee on Commerce, Consumer Protection and Housing that is attached to this report, your Committee is in accord with the intent and purpose of S.B. No. 2881, as amended herein, and recommends that it pass Second Reading in the form attached hereto as S.B. No. 2881, S.D. 1, and be referred to the Committee on Ways and Means.