Honorable Calvin K.Y. Say

Speaker, House of Representatives

Twenty-Third State Legislature

Regular Session of 2006

State of Hawaii

Sir:

Your Committee on Finance, to which was referred H.B. No. 2558 entitled:

begs leave to report as follows:

The purpose of this bill is to encourage employees who have suffered work-related injuries to return to work by allowing an employee who has been deemed unable to return to the employee's original position due to a work injury to be referred by the Director of Labor and Public Employment for vocational rehabilitation services.

The Hawaii Government Employees Association, ILWU Local 142, Vocational Management Consultants, Inc., and several concerned individuals testified in support of this bill. The Hawaii Employers' Mutual Insurance Company, Inc., supported the intent of this measure. The Department of Labor and Industrial Relations and Department of Human Resources Development opposed this bill.

Your Committee finds that the law as applied refers employees to vocational rehabilitation services when they are unable to return to their position due to a work injury.

Your Committee has amended this bill by changing the effective date to July 1, 2020, to encourage further discussion.

As affirmed by the record of votes of the members of your Committee on Finance that is attached to this report, your Committee is in accord with the intent and purpose of H.B. No. 2558, as amended herein, and recommends that it pass Third Reading in the form attached hereto as H.B. No. 2558, H.D. 1.