Honorable Robert Bunda

President of the Senate

Twenty-Third State Legislature

Regular Session of 2005

State of Hawaii

Sir:

Your Committee on Ways and Means, to which was referred H.B. No. 1614, H.D. 1, S.D. 1, entitled:

begs leave to report as follows:

The purpose of this measure is to ensure that civil service employees of the newly established Department of Education Civil Service Personnel System, especially those transferred from the executive branch pursuant to Act 51, Session Laws of Hawaii 2004, shall have the same benefits and rights of civil service employees in the executive branch civil service system.

Your Committee finds that Act 51 mandated the transfer of certain functions from various state departments or agencies to the Department of Education. Act 51 also authorized the Department of Education to establish a separate personnel system under the control of the Board of Education. Your Committee believes that the rights and benefits of Department of Education civil service employees, whether or not transferred pursuant to Act 51, should be the same and not diminished by the transfer or the institution of a separate personnel system.

Your Committee has amended this measure by clarifying that it applies to civil service employees of the Department of Education, not to department personnel generally.

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 H.B. No. 1614, H.D. 1, S.D. 1, as amended herein, and recommends that it pass Third Reading in the form attached hereto as H.B. No. 1614, H.D. 1, S.D. 2.