Honorable Calvin K.Y. Say

Speaker, House of Representatives

Twenty-Third State Legislature

Regular Session of 2005

State of Hawaii

Sir:

Your Committees on Public Safety & Military Affairs and Labor & Public Employment, to which was referred S.B. No. 1190, S.D. 1, entitled:

beg leave to report as follows:

The purpose of this measure is to exempt the salaries and wages received by police officers from the state income tax.

Your Committees find that retention of trained and experienced police officers continues to be a critical problem for law enforcement officials. Every year mainland municipalities deplete the ranks of Hawaii's various county police departments with offers of higher salaries that result in a police force operating at less than full capacity. This condition places the safety of the general public at risk. Police services that are otherwise provided under the presence of a full contingency of officers are necessarily cutback, resulting in the inability of police to immediately respond to the needs of the public.

To assist police officers and to encourage them to remain in their present positions, this measure exempts salaries received by police officers from the state income tax. Inasmuch as your Committees agree with the intent of this measure, your Committees believe that further discussion on this issue is necessary. Therefore, your Committees have amended the measure to provide an income tax exemption for police officers equal to an unspecified percentage of their salaries and wages.

As affirmed by the records of votes of the members of your Committees on Public Safety & Military Affairs and Labor & Public Employment that are attached to this report, your Committees are in accord with the intent and purpose of S.B. No. 1190, S.D. 1, as amended herein, and recommend that it pass Second Reading in the form attached hereto as S.B. No. 1190, S.D. 1, H.D. 1, and be referred to the Committee on Finance.