Honorable Robert Bunda

President of the Senate

Twenty-Third State Legislature

Regular Session of 2006

State of Hawaii

Sir:

Your Committee on Ways and Means, to which was referred H.B. No. 2558, H.D. 1, S.D. 1, entitled:

begs leave to report as follows:

The purpose of this measure is to authorize the Director of Labor and Industrial Relations to refer for vocational rehabilitation those employees who are unable to return to their regular jobs upon medical stabilization and who have not been offered suitable work that is comparable in earnings to their former jobs.

Your Committee finds that current law authorizes the Director to make referrals only for those employees who have suffered permanent disability as a result of work injuries but not for any other group of injured employees. Your Committee finds that there are other types of injured workers who are in a similar economic predicament as those currently covered under the law.

Your Committee has amended this measure by clarifying that the employer's offer of suitable work must be an offer of permanent suitable work. This amendment is necessary to eliminate the possibility of an employee being refused a referral for vocational rehabilitation merely because the employer offered the employee work of a temporary nature.

Your Committee has also amended this measure by changing the effective date to July 1, 2050, to promote continued discussion of the matter.

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. 2558, 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. 2558, H.D. 1, S.D. 2.