Honorable Robert Bunda

President of the Senate

Twenty-Third State Legislature

Regular Session of 2006

State of Hawaii

Sir:

Your Committees on Transportation and Government Operations and Education and Military Affairs, to which was referred H.B. No. 2183, H.D. 1, entitled:

beg leave to report as follows:

The purpose of this measure is to authorize the issuance of general obligation bonds to fund retrofitting of public school buildings to enable them to be used as emergency shelters.

Your Committees received testimony in support of this measure from the State Civil Defense and the Department of Education.

Your Committees find that the supply of emergency shelters is woefully and dangerously inadequate. Emergency shelters can make the difference between life or death in a disaster, as was demonstrated in New Orleans with Hurricane Katrina. This measure is an outgrowth of that disaster-turned-catastrophe, which could have been ameliorated with better planning for emergency shelters.

The State Civil Defense estimates that the cost would be $35,000,000 to retrofit public schools, but the agency is asking for an initial appropriation of $4,000,000.

As affirmed by the records of votes of the members of your Committees on Transportation and Government Operations and Education and Military Affairs that are attached to this report, your Committees are in accord with the intent and purpose of H.B. No. 2183, H.D. 1, and recommend that it pass Second Reading and be referred to the Committee on Ways and Means.